The Absence of Evidence
When complex arguments are distilled down to single-sentence maxims or sound bytes, applied liberally and without thought to virtually any situation, one will frequently find the salient point bludgeoned and destroyed through misuse. There are a number of examples of this sort of bastardization. For instance, the famed description of evolution as “survival of the fittest” ended up spawning generations of foolish people who thought evolution must therefore be false since overweight dogs exist and not every creature is a beefed-up, muscular man-cake. When a theory is removed of all nuance, having it all strained away through ignorance in the interest of producing a short and sweet description, it is often prime for misuse. As an atheist, one of the most frequently abused phrases of this nature is the old “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” argument.
The most annoying thing about this phrasing is that it simply isn’t true at all, whereas at least “survival of the fittest” can be interpreted in a way that accords with evolution. And if one thought about the phrase before actually regurgitating it thoughtlessly, the world would be removed of much unnecessary regurgitation. Suppose, for instance, that there is no apple currently in your mouth. How would you establish the absence of this apple? Ideally, you’d start by attempting to make observations rather than taking the route of faith and asserting that the apple works in mysterious apple-ish ways we cannot comprehend.
Now, if the apple were in your mouth, you’d expect to feel it against your teeth and lips, to obstruct your breathing a bit, to be seen when you look in a mirror, and so on. When you do not make these observations, you conclude on the basis of the lacking evidence that there is no apple in your mouth. In this case, it is quite obvious that absence of evidence is indeed evidence of absence. When you can expect to have evidence of something’s existence, and that expectation is dashed, you can more than adequately deny that the thing exists. So the absence of evidence argument fails, and most making the argument would concede the point.
But if the argument is so flawed, how did it ever attain such massive credibility that it is ingrained in the minds of millions and relentlessly spouted off by any believers in gods, bigfoots, leprechauns, or whatever the hell else crazy people believe? The fact is, there is a grain of truth to the claim. It is, for instance, a logical fallacy to argue from ignorance. In other words, if you are ignorant of the evidence, it doesn’t follow that the evidence does not exist, or that the thing in question is nonexistent. Arguments of this nature are particularly open to question if no attempt at investigation has been made. Someone who shuts his eyes, plugs his ears, and shouts “Na-Na-Na!” when being presented with the evidence for something can very well claim that he has not received any evidence, but in that case it would reflect his willful ignorance of the evidence rather than the nonexistence of the thing in question. (This is a favorite tactic of creationists, for instance, when they blithely assert there are no transitional fossils even as an archaeopteryx bites their ass.)
One of the most important things to note is that though arguing from ignorance is a logical fallacy and obviously precludes any sort of logical certainty, it does not preclude various degrees of certainty or reasonableness. Because we are connected to reality through shoddy, ramshackle sensory apparatuses that are in turn wired to a mass of gray matter prone to delusions, bias, and an overt fondness for comical farting, we unfortunately do not possess any capacity to divine pure and whole truth from our surroundings. Instead, we have to use the much more tiresome process of science, which is really little different from a trial and error heuristic. Anyone who has studied science, for instance, knows that the hypothetico-deductive method is constantly used to assess a theory. Basically, a scientist will don his labcoat, thick-rimmed glasses, and characteristic wild, unkempt hair and proceed to test a theory by inferring what consequences would follow if it were true, and then making observations to see if these consequences truly follow in reality. If the inferred consequences are observed, the scientist shouts, “Eureka!” or “It’s alive! ALIIIIIVVEEEEE!” and the zombie monster he has created proceeds to devour humanity. But here’s the problem. The professor of logic over in the math department might catch wind of this monster creation and deny its validity, because the hypothetico-deductive method as described above is a logical fallacy known as affirming the consequent. So the logician would exclaim, “If theory x entails y, it doesn’t follow that x is true when we see y. Theories w, y, and z could also entail y. You can only DISCONFIRM the theory by observing not-y!” And the logician would keep saying this even as the horrible biological frankenstein devours him.
And that is essentially the problem. In everyday reasoning and the sciences, you don’t expect logical certainty. We are forced to be fallibilists owing to our epistemic limitations, crippling cognitive biases, and obsessive ability to be distracted by bubble wrap. But a person who makes an appeal to the old absence of evidence argument is channeling his inner Cartesian, wishing to go back to a time of rationalism where it was still believed that we could know things with absolute, logical certainty through simple inner reflection. Unfortunately for these little Cartesians, their daily lives are a testament to their disbelief in the rationalist epistemic system. They press the brake pedal expecting their cars to stop, even though there would be no logical contradiction in expecting the car to stop upon jamming on the gas pedal. They also refrain from jumping off of buildings expecting to fly, eating a toaster expecting it to taste like pizza, and reading this blog expecting great remarks of wit and clarifying edification. At heart, we all recognize that the search for logical certainty simply won’t do, and we have to accept that the best we can do is possess varying degrees of certainty, but never complete certainty. What makes our scientific and daily reasoning successful isn’t its certainty, but the fact that it has been tried and tested countless times and worked…so far, at least.
And this is why complex ideas should not be smashed into bite-size, single-sentence nuggets of established wisdom, because it only engenders confusion and breeds misuse. I have managed to write countless blocks of texts in explication of this single sentence, and I feel the need to say even more but halt only out of consideration for my unfortunate readers.
The basic point is that absence of evidence is evidence of absence, provided that we have searched for the evidence and found it lacking. Any sort of objection to this sort of reasoning would necessarily come from an outdated Cartesian point of view that seeks undoubtable, absolutely certain knowledge from pure logical deduction, and it would follow that not only is the absence of evidence not evidence of absence, but also that science is completely erroneous and has nothing of worth to say, and that there are not degrees of knowledge but only black and white, completely wrong or completely right. Most who make such claims about the invalidity of arguments from lacking evidence, of course, do not explicitly deny their daily inductive inferences or the technological and conceptual bounties produced by the “logical fallacy” of science as it affirms the consequent. If they wish to retain this argument, they have to be prepared to lose a lot more than just claims of nonexistence, but virtually any nontautological, empirical claim that can possibly be made!
So, why do I disbelieve in God? Because I’d expect to see evidence of such a being and I do not see evidence of such a being. If one were to respond in a mystical fashion, perhaps arguing that we cannot have knowledge of God, that God transcends us in all ways and resides in some supernatural, unfathomable realm, that would be an adequate criticism, but it leaves the theist on still shakier ground. This “mystical” god, for instance, could not be said to be the creator of the universe, capable of intercession in our daily lives (much less getting nailed to a cross), or capable of any sort of observable act that could be adduced as evidence for its existence. So the theist who makes such an argument should be wary of the qualities and attributes in God he is necessarily giving up in doing so, as they likely conflict with the tenets of his religion. Of course, this also opens up another avenue of attack against belief in such a God. The atheist would need only point out that if God is being defined as some unknowable, ineffable entity, that the theist could not possibly know what it is he is saying to exist. He may as well be muttering an incomprehensible gurgle. It is as if I told someone a parrot is on my shoulder, and upon being questioned about the lacking evidence of any parrot, asserting that it is a mystical, unknowable parrot, at which point I am asked how I could know it is parrot-like or know it is on my shoulder if it is indeed unknowable and so deeply mystical, to which my only response is, of course, an incomprehensible gurgle. The principle of Ockham’s razor also serves to adequately refute any appeals to mystical, completely unobservable gods. One should only posit additional existential entities if there is additional evidence for these entities, and naturally atheism is a more parsimonious explanation for lacking evidence than a needless hypothesis about an unknowable God existing. And don’t even get me started on how badly the principle of Ockham’s razor is abused. Ockham’s trusty razor has been abused so many times it will in all likelihood grow up to engage in sexually deviant behavior and suffer sever posttraumatic stress disorder.
February 2nd, 2009 at 12:37 AM
“When complex arguments are distilled down to single-sentence maxims or sound bytes, applied liberally and without thought to virtually any situation, one will frequently find the salient point bludgeoned and destroyed through misuse. There are a number of examples of this sort of bastardization.”
Also known as libertarianism.
February 2nd, 2009 at 8:18 AM
Well stated. I’ve had too many people use this phrase and think they’re making a good argument (and I’ve used it myself in the past, before I realized that it was nonsense).
February 4th, 2009 at 10:01 AM
I’m glad you’re writing again. It was a terrible drought we had.
February 6th, 2009 at 11:15 AM
Would love to see the odd comic again though.
February 6th, 2009 at 6:28 PM
Unfortunately I don’t see myself putting up any more comics, Synchronium. I’m too lazy to do it and my heart just really isn’t in it. At least with the blog I can always be motivated to write whenever something fucked up happens in the world that forces me to mention it.
February 8th, 2009 at 8:04 PM
Basically, a scientist will… proceed to test a theory by inferring what consequences would follow if it were true, and then making observations to see if these consequences truly follow in reality.
Actually, she will infer what consequences would follow if it were false, and try hard to find them. This overcomes the logician’s objection, because we’re not trying to prove theory X is logically valid, but probabilistically warranted. She says, X is probably true: if it were false, the probability that by chance experiments would have failed to disprove it are very small.
February 9th, 2009 at 11:47 AM
hold on
wth are you trying to say?
I’ll read it at some point, but my attn span isn’t enough to deal with craploads of block text =P
February 9th, 2009 at 1:11 PM
“When complex arguments are distilled down to single-sentence maxims or sound bytes, applied liberally and without thought to virtually any situation, one will frequently find the salient point bludgeoned and destroyed through misuse.”
Yes. So what?
“There are a number of examples of this sort of bastardization. For instance, the famed description of evolution as “survival of the fittest” ended up spawning generations of foolish people who thought evolution must therefore be false since overweight dogs exist and not every creature is a beefed-up, muscular man-cake.”
What the hell. This is stupid reasoning. Evolution is suspect because rationally it’s difficult to defend.
“When a theory is removed of all nuance, having it all strained away through ignorance in the interest of producing a short and sweet description, it is often prime for misuse. As an atheist, one of the most frequently abused phrases of this nature is the old “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” argument.”
Yeah. So?
“Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” argument…. you guys have so much fun huh?
February 9th, 2009 at 1:20 PM
“The most annoying thing about this phrasing is that it simply isn’t true at all, whereas at least “survival of the fittest” can be interpreted in a way that accords with evolution.”
Explain how.
“And if one thought about the phrase before actually regurgitating it thoughtlessly, the world would be removed of much unnecessary regurgitation. Suppose, for instance, that there is no apple currently in your mouth. How would you establish the absence of this apple? Ideally, you’d start by attempting to make observations rather than taking the route of faith and asserting that the apple works in mysterious apple-ish ways we cannot comprehend.”
All well and good. But it’s when people try to apply this to God and the divine that they run into a little bit of difficulty. Just a little bit.
Of course then you’ll start bashing me with the tooth fairy, Easter bunny and FSM. Then I’d say this: science and faith are separate, but they need each other.
Einstein would be a good reference here. I’ll post the quote if you ask nicely :p
February 9th, 2009 at 1:26 PM
“Now, if the apple were in your mouth, you’d expect to feel it against your teeth and lips, to obstruct your breathing a bit, to be seen when you look in a mirror, and so on.”
Yeah. So? I could rant about the “evidences” for God in the world, but obviously you wouldn’t believe me.
“When you do not make these observations, you conclude on the basis of the lacking evidence that there is no apple in your mouth. In this case, it is quite obvious that absence of evidence is indeed evidence of absence.”
Yeah. So?
“When you can expect to have evidence of something’s existence, and that expectation is dashed, you can more than adequately deny that the thing exists. So the absence of evidence argument fails, and most making the argument would concede the point.”
Again. For anything within human comprehension this is true. However, you fail to prove this in relation to things that cannot be proven false OR true.
February 9th, 2009 at 1:30 PM
“But if the argument is so flawed, how did it ever attain such massive credibility that it is ingrained in the minds of millions and relentlessly spouted off by any believers in gods, bigfoots, leprechauns, or whatever the hell else crazy people believe?”
ROFL
“The fact is, there is a grain of truth to the claim. It is, for instance, a logical fallacy to argue from ignorance. In other words, if you are ignorant of the evidence, it doesn’t follow that the evidence does not exist, or that the thing in question is nonexistent. Arguments of this nature are particularly open to question if no attempt at investigation has been made. Someone who shuts his eyes, plugs his ears, and shouts “Na-Na-Na!” when being presented with the evidence for something can very well claim that he has not received any evidence, but in that case it would reflect his willful ignorance of the evidence rather than the nonexistence of the thing in question.”
I’m confused. You agree with me then disagree with me. WTF is going on here?
” (This is a favorite tactic of creationists, for instance, when they blithely assert there are no transitional fossils even as an archaeopteryx bites their ass.)”
sigh…. the archaeopteryx doesn’t prove anything. Heck we’re not even sure it’s a real fossil :p
February 9th, 2009 at 1:37 PM
“One of the most important things to note is that though arguing from ignorance is a logical fallacy and obviously precludes any sort of logical certainty, it does not preclude various degrees of certainty or reasonableness.”
Brilliant. I didn’t know that. That wasn’t already completely obvious to me from the beginning.
“Because we are connected to reality through shoddy, ramshackle sensory apparatuses that are in turn wired to a mass of gray matter prone to delusions, bias, and an overt fondness for comical farting, we unfortunately do not possess any capacity to divine pure and whole truth from our surroundings. Instead, we have to use the much more tiresome process of science, which is really little different from a trial and error heuristic.”
See? We’re human. And humans are MORTAL and LIMITED.
“Anyone who has studied science, for instance, knows that the hypothetico-deductive method is constantly used to assess a theory. Basically, a scientist will don his labcoat, thick-rimmed glasses, and characteristic wild, unkempt hair and proceed to test a theory by inferring what consequences would follow if it were true, and then making observations to see if these consequences truly follow in reality. If the inferred consequences are observed, the scientist shouts, “Eureka!” or “It’s alive! ALIIIIIVVEEEEE!” and the zombie monster he has created proceeds to devour humanity.”
Woohoo. I’ve been sermonised to on this by friends, the media, books and my science teachers. I don’t need to hear it AGAIN :p
“But here’s the problem. The professor of logic over in the math department might catch wind of this monster creation and deny its validity, because the hypothetico-deductive method as described above is a logical fallacy known as affirming the consequent. So the logician would exclaim, “If theory x entails y, it doesn’t follow that x is true when we see y. Theories w, y, and z could also entail y. You can only DISCONFIRM the theory by observing not-y!” And the logician would keep saying this even as the horrible biological frankenstein devours him.”
WTF. Now you’re debunking mathematicians too? You’re running out of friends here :p
February 9th, 2009 at 1:39 PM
“And that is essentially the problem. In everyday reasoning and the sciences, you don’t expect logical certainty.”
THANK YOU.
“We are forced to be fallibilists owing to our epistemic limitations, crippling cognitive biases, and obsessive ability to be distracted by bubble wrap.”
Which proves my point above.
“But a person who makes an appeal to the old absence of evidence argument is channeling his inner Cartesian, wishing to go back to a time of rationalism where it was still believed that we could know things with absolute, logical certainty through simple inner reflection.”
Huh?
“Unfortunately for these little Cartesians, their daily lives are a testament to their disbelief in the rationalist epistemic system. They press the brake pedal expecting their cars to stop, even though there would be no logical contradiction in expecting the car to stop upon jamming on the gas pedal. They also refrain from jumping off of buildings expecting to fly, eating a toaster expecting it to taste like pizza, and reading this blog expecting great remarks of wit and clarifying edification. At heart, we all recognize that the search for logical certainty simply won’t do, and we have to accept that the best we can do is possess varying degrees of certainty, but never complete certainty. What makes our scientific and daily reasoning successful isn’t its certainty, but the fact that it has been tried and tested countless times and worked…so far, at least.”
Ok I’m lost now. Try again :p
February 9th, 2009 at 1:42 PM
“And this is why complex ideas should not be smashed into bite-size, single-sentence nuggets of established wisdom, because it only engenders confusion and breeds misuse. I have managed to write countless blocks of texts in explication of this single sentence, and I feel the need to say even more but halt only out of consideration for my unfortunate readers.”
Please do. You are boring me already :p
Nah j/k… I agree with you BUT there’s a balance. Rants without organisation are pointless. Points without explanation are meaningless.
February 9th, 2009 at 1:50 PM
“The basic point is that absence of evidence is evidence of absence, provided that we have searched for the evidence and found it lacking.”
Yes. Unless you deal with things where evidence is obviously not forthcoming.
“Any sort of objection to this sort of reasoning would necessarily come from an outdated Cartesian point of view that seeks undoubtable, absolutely certain knowledge from pure logical deduction, and it would follow that not only is the absence of evidence not evidence of absence, but also that science is completely erroneous and has nothing of worth to say, and that there are not degrees of knowledge but only black and white, completely wrong or completely right.”
What the hell. Cartesian? Do you even know what this term means, let alone in what context it’s supposed to be used in? Sure I don’t but you’re the one writing about his followers :p
“Most who make such claims about the invalidity of arguments from lacking evidence, of course, do not explicitly deny their daily inductive inferences or the technological and conceptual bounties produced by the “logical fallacy” of science as it affirms the consequent. If they wish to retain this argument, they have to be prepared to lose a lot more than just claims of nonexistence, but virtually any nontautological, empirical claim that can possibly be made!”
?????
you use a lot of big words here. they mean something to me yes, but used in this way just make my eyes glaze over. you’re just making the same point you made above. just that all you’re doing is being a prick :p
February 9th, 2009 at 1:58 PM
“So, why do I disbelieve in God?”
Please tell me. Because right now I’m thinking you’re schizophrenic and are in two minds about everything :p
“Because I’d expect to see evidence of such a being and I do not see evidence of such a being.”
Who’s covering their eyes and ears now? Three monkeys anyone?
“If one were to respond in a mystical fashion, perhaps arguing that we cannot have knowledge of God, that God transcends us in all ways and resides in some supernatural, unfathomable realm, that would be an adequate criticism, but it leaves the theist on still shakier ground.”
Ok why?
“This “mystical” god, for instance, could not be said to be the creator of the universe, capable of intercession in our daily lives (much less getting nailed to a cross), or capable of any sort of observable act that could be adduced as evidence for its existence.”
WTF are you saying here? It makes no sense and there is no evidence for your claim.
“So the theist who makes such an argument should be wary of the qualities and attributes in God he is necessarily giving up in doing so, as they likely conflict with the tenets of his religion.”
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
“Of course, this also opens up another avenue of attack against belief in such a God. The atheist would need only point out that if God is being defined as some unknowable, ineffable entity, that the theist could not possibly know what it is he is saying to exist.”
WTF. I’ll just reverse your argument on you like you explained above. THEN we’d be going around in circles.
Ineffable? That sounds wrong on so many levels :p
“He may as well be muttering an incomprehensible gurgle. It is as if I told someone a parrot is on my shoulder, and upon being questioned about the lacking evidence of any parrot, asserting that it is a mystical, unknowable parrot, at which point I am asked how I could know it is parrot-like or know it is on my shoulder if it is indeed unknowable and so deeply mystical, to which my only response is, of course, an incomprehensible gurgle.”
Interesting use of analogies/parables. Learning from the master I see :p
Again this proves nothing. You’re just using the FSM/unicorn argument. Which is absolutely pointless because it is absolutely false.
“The principle of Ockham’s razor also serves to adequately refute any appeals to mystical, completely unobservable gods.”
OcCam’s razor. not ockham :p but go on if you can. why?
“One should only posit additional existential entities if there is additional evidence for these entities, and naturally atheism is a more parsimonious explanation for lacking evidence than a needless hypothesis about an unknowable God existing.”
what bullshit.
from what I can see, the only reason you can’t see the evidence is that you are blind and deaf to it. Atheism doesn’t explain anything and it’s an untenable position.
“And don’t even get me started on how badly the principle of Ockham’s razor is abused. Ockham’s trusty razor has been abused so many times it will in all likelihood grow up to engage in sexually deviant behavior and suffer sever posttraumatic stress disorder.”
????????????????????????/
that’s scary.
since the fundamental position of Occam’s razor is wrong anyway though, I don’t give a shit. :p
February 9th, 2009 at 2:01 PM
This is only the tip of the iceberg mate.
I could do the same to the rest of your posts, but I think I’ll leave it for the day.
A few things:
Before you accuse me of threatening you, remember you put this in the public domain and you opened it to comment. If you, stupidly, didn’t want anyone to comment or argue, then you shouldn’t have enabled comments. Indeed you shouldn’t have even bothered posting your argument.
Also, I’m just dealing with your arguments. I’ve hardly touched mine. I’ve just used my logic, reason, commonsense and the residual faith that I have to argue here. So I’ve got plenty up your sleeve.
Having said that, have a nice day and I hope to hear from you soon.
February 9th, 2009 at 6:04 PM
Tankman, do you even know what an argument IS? Throughout what seems to be an infinite array of commentary (and you complain about my post’s lack of organization?), your “argument” seems to consist mainly of you quoting me and then issuing a response like “What?”, “Bullshit!”, or else throwing up countless red herrings that have nothing to do with what I’ve written.
It is obvious that you haven’t even understood what I’ve written, because you seem to agree with me when I talk about our epistemic limitations, but you don’t seem to follow the train of the argument that points out these limitations are not problematic for fallibilist epistemology, but only for those of a rationalist bent who demand absolute, complete logical certainty for all beliefs. (And I saw you criticize my use of Cartesian in this context. Perhaps you should reread Descartes so you can realize that he is indeed a rationalist philosopher concerned with epistemic issues who thought this could only be resolved with absolute certainty. This is just basic, Philosophy 101 stuff. Please tell me you’ve heard of “I think, therefore I am”? If you understood why he said that, you’d understand why I am characterizing those who want epistemology to be infallible and capable of a priori logical deduction throughout as “Cartesians”.)
When you show the capacity to understand what I’m saying, perhaps then I’ll think it worth my time to attempt communication with you. At the moment, however, I think a boulder would show better comprehension.
February 9th, 2009 at 8:58 PM
I understood. I just don’t want to engage with you on the same level. Because it’ll become a philosophical debate.
Besides you haven’t answered my questions.
Also do you even understand the words you use yourself?
I only came here because I found a random link to your quiz. Was going to go back and give it 6000% on the rating too.
February 12th, 2009 at 10:09 AM
Tankman, what the fuck? You don’t want to get into a philosophical discussion? Then why post any comments at all?
And “Ockham” is just as correct a spelling as “Occam.”
February 12th, 2009 at 1:24 PM
*Ignoring Tankman completely as “So what” and “????????” are not valid technique’s for debate or discourse*
SG- I just had a geek-gasm on the correct application and defense of Ockham’s razor. The poor thing is a child star of logic. So much promise shown in it’s youth, the chance to work with the greatest mind’s of all ages, now it is drudged out to cameo as the trump card for arguements no one can believe in.
When you have a chance, try picking up Ibn al-Haytham’s Aporias against Ptolemy. I think you will adore it.
And please keep writing. I am addicted to your text. You are blog-crack for me.
February 12th, 2009 at 4:27 PM
Ha, Tankman seems to be operating under the depressingly common misconception that “philosophical” discussion is tantamount to the fact-free, inane, and arbitrary pulling of ideas from one’s ass, Mr. Wilder. No doubt this is a clear case of psychological projection on Tankman’s part.
February 17th, 2009 at 11:45 PM
MW – it’s pointless in my opinion. there are more important things in the world than that. Having said that, I quite like them. But they are pointless *shrugs*
HL – that’s exactly how a vast majority of the world’s English speaking population would react when you use such language. They may not be valid techniques to you but they exist and are used. The reason why academia is often maligned is that no one understands, thus no one cares. *you can keep ignoring me if you like :p*
SG – um not necessarily. Like I said, philosophical discussion is interesting, but I find it ultimately unprofitable. You can use whatever ideas you like, but it’s how you use them that proves how much you actually understand them. I never actually used the three adjectives you used to describe your actions, but if you can find them anywhere in my above comments, then feel free to quote.
So, since you seem intent on trying to make a generalisation as to my actions and motivations, what do you mean by “psychological projection”?
February 18th, 2009 at 12:13 AM
“I never actually used the three adjectives you used to describe your actions, but if you can find them anywhere in my above comments, then feel free to quote.”
You never used those specific adjectives (fact-free, inane, and arbitrary), but immediately before this quote you said:
“Like I said, philosophical discussion is interesting, but I find it ultimately unprofitable. You can use whatever ideas you like…”
That is, you can use whatever ideas you like, whether they be fact-free, inane, and arbitrary. But that is not really philosophy. You can’t just say anything you like and call it philosophy, though that’s quite popular these days (see my latest post, for example, as I discuss this in detail).
I suppose now I’ll go over a few things you said in your previous comments, at least some of the things that weren’t later addressed in my post. (You really should read the whole thing before posting comments, because most of the stuff you say about God not producing evidence for or against is addressed toward the end.)
For instance, you say that we can’t rely on absence of evidence as an indicator of absence when you “deal with things where evidence is obviously not forthcoming.” This is true. That’s why I specifically address those Gods that are said to transcend the material world in all ways and don’t produce evidence. These are the passages, by the way, where you respond to the quotes by putting “??????” and clearly not understanding it. I will try to explain it for you here though.
Now, suppose you posit a God that is transcendant and doesn’t produce evidence. Okay, fine. One point I make in the post above is that such a God would conflict with most religious traditions that specifically invoke Gods that have empirical effects. Christianity, for instance, posits that god was once walking around in person, is capable of performing observable miracles, and created the observable world. This is not a transcendant God for which you could expect no evidence. So you’d have to abandon tenets like these to maintain any argument about God being transcendant or unknowable to humanity.
The second point I make is that when one claims an unknowable God exists, they don’t know what they are asserting to exist. If the being is truly unknowable, they don’t know whether it is a thinking entity, a mindless force, or a unicorn. You can’t say what it is if you admit you don’t know, and hence you’re claim would be nonsensical, tantamount to speaking jibberish. Your “argument” against this is to simply say that this is the “FSM/unicorn” argument. How is this at all similar to such an argument? I’m not saying that God can be doubted because unicorns can be doubted here. I’m saying that God can be doubted because God believers who assert that their God is transcendant, by their own definition of God’s qualities, can’t know what they are asserting to exist. I don’t doubt unicorns, for instance, because people don’t know what they are asserting when they say unicorns exist. Unicorns are defined as creatures that are capable of observation with certain specific traits. I have a feeling you just don’t understand my argument, and it also seems you don’t really have a grasp on what the terms “transcendant” and “ineffable” mean in the context of my argument.
April 25th, 2010 at 11:35 PM
So I know this isn’t popular right now but I hear this existence of god argument all the time and I’m getting sick of it.
The human mind is a wonderful thing, capable of complex reasoning and understanding. But it is not perfect. No one has a perfect mind that can understand everything. My question is: why do people nowadays have to apply this reasoning in an attempt to understand something that might just be something that can only be understood with an intelligence other than your mind. Is that all we are, minds? My mind doesn’t tell me to breath in or breathe out, it doesn’t tell my heart to beat. My brain might, but not my mind. and what’s telling my brain? Maybe not god, but not my mind either.
I find most atheists to be guilty of the same faulty logic as any “deluded” religious person, distilling things down to a “here’s a list of reason’s using a purely academic mind based system of evaluation” for something that is the domain of a higher consciousness. “intellectuals” have a tendency to accept the “physical” aspects of life. Would you say that someone’s athletic perfomence or talents come from their mind? or is there something else at work here? of course there is, the body. I propose that there is a higher intelligence (call it what you will) than the mind, and that is what you are supposed to use to understand “god.” You wouldn’t use a hammer to drive a screw. You could, but you’re gonna make a mess.
There’s more to this life and universe than “facts” and “things.” What about the space between things. You can’t actually know it but it’s pretty important, wouldn’t you say?
I am not a proponent of organized religion or even of any deity or the concept GOD. But it seem to me that we live in a world with a lot of loose ends. Even in mathematics, the most logical discipline I can think of there are irrational and imaginary numbers. Things that do not compute in terms of mind stuff. But they have their place all the same, sometimes an important place: 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288…
Look, I know that religion and “god” have been responsible for many, many, wrongs and harms. They’ve been used to justify abuses great and small, to control people and stop them from developing, gaining power or even a better life. But let’s all stop throwing the baby out with the bath water. If you can quiet your mind and find stillness and peace away from it you’ll realize there’s more out there. Is it GOD? I dunno. Call it what you will. Until you can do that however, really see it without your mind, atheism is the newest dogmatic religion to start imposing it’s will and “beliefs” onto people. I’m sorry, but Descarte was wrong: “I think therefore I am.” I’ve never heard a finer example of dumbing something down to a sound byte in my life. Do babies think? Do plants? Rocks? Creatures of the sea? These all “are” in the world I live in. “I am, therefore I think.” That I am is this “god” everyone is so worked up about.
I’m sure by now you’ve already complied a list of holes in my argument that you’re all just dying to point out to me so that I can realize that I’m deluded. You’re probably right. In your terms, “God” doesn’t make sense. But when I stop my mind for a few seconds and sit in that still space… I KNOW, not believe (the crazy guy on the corner BELIEVES he knows God, he also BELIEVES that the world is going to end. you can believe in a myth or religion, but you have to know “GOD”) but KNOW there is something more. It’s a knowing that’s different from studying something, naming it, defining it and then claiming to understand it completely. You all hate that, because you can’t argue with that (there’s nothing to argue with) or make points for or against it. But what more proof could ask for than knowing something? Some people would call that fact. This knowledge is available to anyone through practice, just as a better body is available to anyone through exercise, or a better mind is available through study or reason. Find a way in, it’s there. Do it through any method you please… I’m NOT sticking up for religion. But do it, find it. It’s there the way space is there, the way that silence is there. Now you’ve got me talking like a monk. Apologies. Summing up, leave the mind out of your search for GOD. It’s just not useful to you.
April 25th, 2010 at 11:51 PM
P.S. Creationist are nuts. You’ve got my vote on that.
April 28th, 2010 at 12:25 PM
Tankman, you’re insane.
April 28th, 2010 at 2:21 PM
I.D., you are a wooly-headed new age nonsense loving moron. that is really all that needs to be said, but i’ll enlighten you a little
your idea is that there is a higher intelligence than the mind flies in the face of all currently understood neurophysiology. the frontal brain is the last thing we’ve gotten, and it’s still irrational and stupid. what we find is that when people have religious experiences, the LEAST advanced and recently evolved parts of their brains light up, showing it’s an absurd atavism.
you say “there’s more to this universe than ‘facts’” are you fucking retarded? do you even know what a fact is? do you honestly believe an opinion has any objective existence of itself? you are an oaf and a fool, trying to wrap your mind around concepts way out of your depth. epistemiology is a realm for ADVANCED logicians, not stoned college students like yourself.
“descartes was wrong’”well, be that as it may, but its is absolutely not for this retarded reason here. “i think therefore i am” was merely how he knows that he, personally, exists in a universe that may or may not. so in your examples, you don’t really KNOW if a rock exists, or a baby, or the ocean, do you. it could be an elaborate illusion. you could be a brain in a jar, and this whole universe is a fake for you. if you do not understand this basic idea and how it is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT from claiming that nonthinking things do not exist, please try philosophy 101 again.
you have a very idiotic view of science, too, if you think what we are about is “claiming to understand it completely.”, you are wrong. simply, idiotically, dead wrong. what we do is try to find out truth as it pertains to reality. what you might be perceiving is the fact that scientists look down on your bullshit fuzzy thinking ideas because they know MORE THAN YOU DO. you have obviously spent your life imbibing a great quantity of marijuana or other plant that induces feelings of mysticity, but scientists have spent their lives UNDERSTANDING HOW SHIT WORKS, you BOOB. of COURSE we’re more qualified to understand shit than you. nobody is claiming to understand it completely. that’s only you, mr. “I KNOW FOR A FACT THAT THERE IS SOMETHING SCIENCE CAN’T SEE”. well, motherfucker, point it out! science CALLS your bluff. those transcendental feelings you get when you meditate? we can recreate them with magnets. they are nothing more special than an orgasm. they produce no useful information and provide no increased ability to work through problems.
anyway, i’m tired of yelling at a woolly brained new age simpleton with foolish ambitions of credibility. go back to college a couple more times till you get it.
April 29th, 2010 at 8:44 AM
Whoah Tom, looks like Mr. New Age struck a nerve. Maybe figuring out how things work isn’t the most important thing to do? Perhaps working through problems… or “useful information” isn’t at all the purpose of a meditative state? I don’t want to argue these questions with you, I just want to point out the assumptions you’re making.
Also, can you provide a source or link to the supposed magnets you claim can recreate transcendental feelings? I would love to see this study, if it is real. There is a great deal of scientific brain research currently being undertaken, particularly magnetic resonance imaging, in regards to meditation. Your understanding of the results so far, frankly, seem to be the sort of hasty generalization that “skeptics” hate.
And to the author, it’s smart to admit that you’re only certain to a degree. However, your overall understanding of what people mean when they say “God” is, though accurate for much of mainstream religious doctrine, very limited overall. You do not seem to understand what “mystical” means, because most mystics would say that God is knowable but indescribable. By “know”, they essentially mean experience. By actively disbelieving it seems to me that you are, in effect, saying “science is man’s only means of understanding the world.” This is the point you should really be arguing.
The easy thing about arguing against God is that you get to define the very thing against which you are arguing. I would argue that God exists but questions such as “did God create the universe” do not actually apply because it is not necessary to believe the Universe was created. If you are going to put so much effort into arguing against God, don’t you think you should have a more sophisticated idea of what religion is really about? Do you ever think about Buddhism or Taoism and how they don’t fit into most arguments against God very well?
April 29th, 2010 at 4:26 PM
sorry ryan, you got that all wrong. it’s okay. conflict-phobic accommodationists tend to be a little sparse on the reading comprehension.
no, the simple argument here is that if it exists, it can be examined and understood better through science. this is a FACT.
if gods were real and had an observable influence on things, you would call that reality, yes? science deals with that reality. if you are unwilling to use the scrutiny of the scientific method it means you are afraid your ideas will not hold up to them. if you really believed in your god, you would be jumping up and down to prove, scientifically, that it exists.
if gods were real and influenced the world, there would be a new branch of science, Deityology or somesuch. because this would be based on events that actually happened and deal with an actual thinking entity, there would actually be some consistency, instead of just sounding like the cacophanous collected insanities of uncounted multitudes like it is now. religions claim to have direct links to these entities, and are even able to question them. because this entity or entities would be both observable and willing to interact with humanity, we could collect some good, solid data on it. now, we might not understand that data. it might not be the most accurate. it would be at best a handful of different subjects to study. we might have to be gods ourselves to figure out the unified theory of deityhood. but the important thing is that there would be a body of real fucking data on these so-called ‘unknowables’. and in the mean time we can work on the lesser theory’s of God’s Favorite Pizza Topping or whatever the fuck it is you obsess over at his fanclubs.
you do see this sometimes, but it is almost invariably mockery of religion. here is an example of how we can divine god’s will simply from how he allows the world to play out:
http://www.gendersanity.com/orlando.shtml
this really isn’t that hard. religions make claims all the time and they are very frequently scientifically testable, and testable to be FALSE.
now, the only people i have ever, ever, ever seen attempt anything remotely like this seriously are the buddhists. they seem to actually try to understand the ‘how’ and the ‘why’ of what they’re doing, and the coolest thing about it is they keep records of their techniques! yes! so that it’s reproducable! double yes! the only thing they are missing is the scrutiny of the scientific method to keep natural fuzzy thinking to a minimum. as such, they have more than a little dogma that they follow ‘just because’ but it is thankfully, at an ignorable minimum compared to most others. (and, certainly, whatever moron religion unlucky enough to have you pulling for it. ) this has given the buddhists some wicked sweet plusses to go with their religion, courtesy of generations of practice, note keeping, improvement, and reasoning (basically, science): if you practice long enough you can totally do shit like cook eggs on your head and stop your own heart. this is completely metal and should make it obvious why your religion should practice scrutiny
“The easy thing about arguing against God is that you get to define the very thing against which you are arguing.”
are you fucking stupid? this is the exact opposite of how it’s supposed to go. YOU morons have the positive claim (there is a magic man who contacts me telepathically and tells me how to behave), and it is YOUR job to define that claim intelligibly. especially when the other option requires so much less made up shit (you are fucking mental and should not be given scissors) when you define your claim nonsensically, of course it is going to be mocked and rightly so. what you are perhaps misunderstanding is that we men of science have been at this for so fucking long we have LITERALLY taken on every single fucking definition you mystics have thrown at us and proven them to be either/and A) logicially impossible B) observably and demonstratably false C) completely indistinguishable from how events would play out sans-deities.
so, do you have a god that interacts with the world? how do you believe he does? why have you not done a simple study on it? surely with reasoned measuring of the many miracles he performs, one could gain much greater insight into the very mind of god.
it is because you know that any study, at all, will show all your beliefs to be based on nothing but how fucking high you got last time you meditated, dude, and how it’s totally so mind blowing, for real.
no, I know the value of meditation. it is mental therapeutic exercise, compared to a physical therapeutic exercise like yoga. it strengthens, it adds flexibility and quickness, and most especially it aids healing. it can let you do some pretty crazy tricks, too. but you would be mistaken to think the lovely high one gets after exercise means anything. likewise, when one meditates, one gets high. it’s a reproducable phenomenon. it is an imbeciles mistake to think that feeling good means anything, however.
beyond that? this transcendental state you are all so fired up over, this proof of something ‘else’?
maybe i’d be more impressed if all i heard wasn’t just the same old tired, rehashed, “the great insight i had while meditating is that all things are connected, all are one, etc. etc. etc.” maybe if all that connectedness actually ever meant anything except that the person has a new set of values to be hypocritical towards. disclosure: i have felt this transcendental state myself. it was a wicked high. this insight of connectedness was very profound at the time, but no more profound than the insight that ‘dog’ spelled backwards is ‘god’ becomes to a stoner, upon later reflection.
what else? surely, this state is so incredible and transcendental of anything and everything we know, we could surely retreive SOMEthing from all the millions of people who do it every day besides the exact same fucking blissing out. SURELY, all those TRANSCENDING OUR FEEBLE AND MUNDANE WORLD TO GO DANCE AMONGST THE STARS could bring back some interesting star stories. instead, what we get is “dude, it was fucking killer. I saw everything! you have to try it.” and “you just don’t get it.” very impressive.
May 3rd, 2010 at 3:46 PM
I must admit I would agree with much of what you have to say, St. Gas; however I think you are a bit too hard on those that may use this phrase. You say that this phrase “simply isn’t true.” This is not the case, nor should you conclude anything about what is being spoken of by those who say it. First, their stance on the issue is not wrong; rather it is (very) WEAK. The one does not equal the other – even if a slight breeze may knock them over that line, we must respect that boundary. Second, it would be wrong to draw parallels between a person who believes in God simply because there is no “evidence of absence,” and others who share the same belief in God for reasons based in logic. Your judgment must remain on them, not on the belief. Just because an idiot believes in something doesn’t mean what they believe in is idiotic.
“The most annoying thing about this phrasing is that it simply isn’t true at all…”
Your example of why this phrase isn’t true commits a logical fallacy, that of a false analogy. They say you cannot compare apples to oranges, yet in this case you compare apples to a metaphysical and abstract concept of Deity. This is an egregious stretch. It is preposterous to assert that something tangible behaves and can be known in the same way as something abstract. Perhaps a better example (but less helpful for your position) would be to see a man sitting on a bench and to say, “That man must (not) have morals. I see him doing nothing wrong (right), therefore he has (no) morals.” This, in the same vein, is the argument from ignorance. But how can you say this is false or true? A person watching who believes the bench man is moral cannot tell another viewer that believes he is immoral that his assertion is wrong. Even if they were to watch him over time acting in a way that gave evidence of his moral standing, then the positions become even more convoluted as it must be discussed concerning what is a moral action, are morals subjective or objective, what of mental defect, etc. All in all, to say that a person who holds to the phrase in question cannot be told they are wrong, nor are they, solely based on that premise alone.
Also, your example of the Logician eaten alive by the monster the he logically doesn’t believe in is a bit oversimplified. Any logician worth his salt would not apply such a proof to science; it well known that “If X then Y, Y, therefore X” is not equivalent to the factors involved in scientific study. There are many more factors involved which renders the self-supporting aspect of the fallacy moot. I also find the sudden lack of value in logic and rationality a bit odd and possibly self-serving. Are you asking me to trust science more than logic? Is logic wrong? If logic is wrong, how will I know what is right? Or might that be due to some of the big questions that science and atheism cannot answer that a belief in God might? Or that the evidence you claim to have supporting your belief could just as well be understood to support a belief in God? You cannot deny the brilliance of mind that was and is displayed by those who believe in deity just as much as those who believe in God cannot pass off great atheist thinkers as fools. To set up a straw man in your last paragraph is another egregious over-simplification of the evidence for God, especially after planting a seed of doubt in logic.
Yet in your overall premise, I would stand with you. I say all this in an effort to further the discussion. No one should rest their belief in a lack of evidence against their belief. Those on both sides of this proverbial fence can benefit by actually conversing about the issue rather than arrogantly standing for or against what they “know” to be “true.”
May 4th, 2010 at 4:06 AM
i think without loss of substance, you could have posted “reality is not an axiomatic system” instead of your spiel.
PS i like how your troll made the first of his three thousand posts “ug not like read so much”
May 7th, 2010 at 1:39 PM
If you see no evidence for the existence of God then you are walking around with your eyes closed.
Or are you doing as so many people do and equate evidence with proof.
I have never heard the slogan you said, although I have heard people say “the absence of proof is not evidence of absence” which is much more salient.
There is no proof of God and there never will be, not in our 4 dimensional space-time continuum in any event, except on an individual bases. However, there is lots of evidence, one need only open your eyes.
May 8th, 2010 at 10:57 AM
“credibility that it is ingrained in the minds of millions and relentlessly” – nobody serious holds this opinion despite their faith. You’re an idiot if you think this argument has force among any believer whose IQ is above room temperature. Really, this is the epitome of a straw man.
You can come to the knowledge of the existence of God via Thomas’ 5 ways – which is predicated on the ability to have _any true knowledge at all_ of reality (rather than probability) – this means that the whole Kantian corpus (it’s mostly bullshit anyway) is out, as well as much of post-Cartesian philosophy, and any pretensions in the direction of deconstructionism – none of them have real knowledge, so they can’t have real knowledge of God. Positivism fails since it’s contingent on the observer and reproducibility – none of which are prerequisites for objective reality (reality can have one-offs that science will never, ever, be able to deal with, since it’s not reproducible. Individuals, for instance, are excellent examples of this – science can’t account for one person. It can account for statistics, it can account for the hows and whys of their body and much of their mind, but their uniqueness and individuality are _entirely left out_. Okay, so much for the limits of science.)
So, what’s the take-away?
1) Most people get faith wrong. The Catholics – that is, what the Catholic Church teaches rather than what many bad Catholics believe in ignorance – (specifically St. Thomas, St. Anselm, St. Augustine, Tertullian, Pseudo-dionysius, and the various councils, and Pope Benedict) got it right, philosophically. If you’re coming from a protestant background, then it’s really not surprising you have the retarded notions that are glaring in this article. If it wasn’t for the Church, I wouldn’t believe either. (Not that I’m the perfect Catholic, I’m still working on being nice.)
2) You’re bad at philosophy. Stop it. If you must continue, pick up Authentic Metaphyics in the Age of Unreality by….um…Sweeney (I had to look that up – I should have remembered, though, it’s definitely a good book). Then, go back and read a serious chunk of Aristotle’s corpus (metaphysics, de anima, and a few others) a bit of Anselm and Aquinas, and real modern catholic philosophers like Jacques Maritain, Garrigou-Legrange’s philosophical rather than theological works, Pieper, and Chesterton. Then go pick up Sheed’s Theology and Sanity. It should have started clicking about somewhere through Maritain, but by the time you get to Sheed, it’s a slam dumk.
3) After that, swallow your fucking pride and get your ass in the Church where you belong, you idiot. Then, you can read the saints at your leisure.
The Catholic Church makes a truth claim, since the God-man made a truth claim. He said “I am …the truth”. You can either investigate the truth claim – which about a billion of us (many of whom are reasonably well educated and tolerably smart – some of whom are fucking brilliant) find is credible, you ass.
Or, you know, you can just write an article to pretend to have proved it logically inconsistent, and can go fuck yourself.
May 9th, 2010 at 5:11 AM
“The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence”
What this quote means, essentially, is logically valid. The absence of any evidence (proving that A exists for example) having been discovered is not sufficient evidence to claim that something (again the existence of A, to maintain the previous example) does not exist.
If that were the case, then gravity would not exist. Evidence is not a fact, evidence is logical justification of a claim (apriori or empirical), with that understanding of the word, how could you argue that without Newton (say that no other physicist after him ever had the same ideas about gravity) we would have had evidence for gravity? We would not have had evidence for gravity if it were not for Newton offering his ideas as evidence, in fact there would be an absence of evidence for gravity.
As far as I am understanding your piece, the absence of evidence (logical justification) would sufficiently prove that gravity does not, in fact, exist. But gravity does exist. Not having evidence at a specific moment in time does not entail that there will never be that evidence in the future.
Now if you read the quote alternatively as “the absence of evidence is not the evidence of that absence of evidence” then you would be right in saying it makes no sense. That is not what the quote suggests however.
May 11th, 2010 at 5:40 PM
But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you.
—Luke 6:27-31. NIV
I love how Christians can be so hypocritical. You know what, Pat Condell is right. Its not God that wants to see us non-believers burn, its you. You people would LOVE to see that happen to us. What does that tell you about yourselves? Fuck religion, the mind is our only tool that can save ourselves from the stupidity of religion.
I know I’m gonna get a lot of hate for this from the random Christians who come here only to bash our arguments. BRING IT CHRISTFAGS.
May 13th, 2010 at 12:04 AM
Wow… strikes me as the Adderall induced ramblings of somebody who is incredibly impressed with their own vocabulary.
I apologize for being a random prick, but trying to impress people with a shitload of pompous pseudo-intellectual bullshit… well it’s your right. So I’ll stick a sock in it.
I hope you don’t actually talk to people like this though. People who do that invariably get hit by cars.
I refuse to address the actual argument… it doesn’t take an advanced degree to figure half of that out. Probably just a latte or two and a golf hat.
May 13th, 2010 at 12:09 AM
I regret my initial tone, I do respect your position… (in fact I agree with you), I was only bothered by the tone of the writing itself. That’s entirely personal though, and it really is random and prickish for me to drop in and try to assault you. Hell, it’s an act of courage to post something like this and I really do salute it.
August 25th, 2010 at 9:21 PM
I have to disagree with you, Tom, and your assertion that anything “real” can be understood only through science. This is a philosophical argument you’re making, not a statement of fact. Music is a perfect example–science can explain harmonies, wavelengths, etc… but can science tell you how to write a beautiful symphony? Did people play and write beautiful music before mathematics ever got involved? A computer might be able to write a symphony, but the feeling and emotion that go into a beautiful piece of music can only come from a human being.
Your ideas about “deityology” or whatever are kind of funny, but still lacking in any sort of sophistication. By saying “God x influences world y in such and such a way” you’re making an implicit assumption that God x is a separate “thing” from world y. Spirituality is the idea that you can see with your own eyes that God x is world y, and the only way to understand the importance of this is to see it for yourself. You say you’ve heard the same old BS about unity, connectedness… but you must not have been paying attention if you still think God is a separate “thing” apart from everything else, controlling things from afar like a puppeteer. Of course, this is certainly how many religious folks view the world and I think it’s dead wrong… but the philosophical leap to scientific materialism is just going to another extreme. Science examines reality based on a set of assumptions about how things work, and is only geared towards objective phenomenon. Subjective experiences are not scientific and hence trying to study a subjectively experienced phenomenon is utterly futile. Also, you can get high and call it a transcendental experience, but that doesn’t mean you understand what it means.
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