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[Cheeetar]

But what if you could give your children all the cookies you wanted, without them suffering because of the diet?

[MrWiggles]

This has been said a 100 times in this thread already but I'll try again.

Lack of proof does not = the lack of a thing.  that's a logical fallacy.  evidence simply does not exist in one way or another to disprove or prve that statement.

And it's also logically fallacious to consider something true despite a lack of evidence.

No, no, no it's not. That's called a premise. Otherwise nothing would be true and logic would really be useless.

Lack of proof does actually = lack of thing(or at least lack of any relevance)

Now you're doing the same thing as G-Flex: confusing logic with empiricism and reality. Logic has NOTHING to do with reality. That's the fun thing about it. The concept of "Relevance" is totally irrelevant to logic itself. I totally agree with what you both say, except that it's a logical fallacy, because it isn't.

Andir raises a point that's often used: "If your God allows suffering, he must be evil and not love you."

I let the person I love the most, suffer on a daily basis, because I love her. My daughter wants cookies. All day long, every day, if it were up to her. Because I love her and know the consequences of that diet, I refuse to give them to her. Which makes my daughter sad. So now I inflicted suffering on her, even though I love her.
Also compare the temporality of life to an infinity of time in heaven. That's less than the blink of an eye worth of suffering. That should be bearable. Yes, God allowed the holocaust to happen, and he's not evil for it.

So you're arguing that allowing child rape and dismemberment is because God a good parent?
There is good coming from not allowing someone to eat a cookie because they want to. There no good from allowing someone to be born with birth defects, to be burned to death due to their sexual proclivities with other consenting adults, to allow a child to become an orphan due to a tsunami, or witness his father be forced at gun point to rape his younger sister or getting pins shoved in the skull and letting the female baby rot in an alley because they werent  male? There is no justification for these atrocities. There are no justified lesson learned on a personal level or a societal level or a global level here. This is needless suffering, unwarranted suffering of someone who couldn't possibly have done anything at all to warrant anything like this at all.

The analogy is flawed and horrendous.

Nearly all human beings have more moral and ethical sense to know that these, scant, evils listed are unjustifiable.
---
And you can't simply state that Heaven (lacks proof), is infinite (lacks proof). Even if it was then any actions taken on earth is of no consequence next to infinity. No matter how good of a person or how evil of a person, compared to infinity it means nothing.

The analogy is flawed and horrendous.

Nearly all human beings have more moral and ethical sense to know that these, scant, evils listed are unjustifiable.

[Siquo]

The analogy is flawed only if you're still a child. The child sees it as evil because he doesn't know any better.

Yes, you may view those things as evil, but if you presume to know better than a parent who is omniscient (eg, almost infinitely more knowledgeable than you), that's quite something to presume.

Oh, and I can simply state that everyone goes to heaven, regardless of what you did. Not all christianity believes in a hell, or a judging God. And certainly not in a God that has human flaws such as the need for justice and stuff like morals.


To Cheeetar: Because I wanted to teach her something, maybe. She has a habit of scratching other children with her fiingernails, and I don't want her to do that. So she stands in the corner when she does that. Most evil and unfair of me, in her perspective.

[Sordid]

What you describe is evidence to the contrary.

No it's not. What it is is lack of evidence where evidence was expected. It's still lack of evidence. There's no such thing as negative evidence, and if you disagree I'd like you to provide an example.

I didn't say negative evidence, I said evidence to the contrary. You have a statement A, you negate it and get statement B. You can have evidence for either.

Seeing no dragon in your garage is evidence for there being no dragon in your garage.

Also, before we take this too far: The original point was, lack of evidence does not imply non-existence. Here's an example:

There is currently no evidence for the existence of the Higgs boson. That does not imply that it does not exist.

Right. Likewise, when you look into your garage, there's no evidence of a dragon. That does not imply that the dragon does not exist.

He finds solace in the fact that the suffering might not be meaningless. Give him a break.

No, I will not give him a break. Why is it not meaningless? Because God says so? What if I say it? Why can God give meaning to things merely by his wishes and we can't? What's so inferior about us? We're sentient beings, we have the ability to make things meaningful.

a parent who is omniscient

Any evidence for that?

Not all christianity believes in [...] a God that has human flaws such as the need for justice and stuff like morals.

Wait, what? Having morals is a flaw now? That's an interesting point, I'd like to hear the rationale behind that.

[Siquo]

Being omniscient (or, even wiser than human) would put you above good and bad, right and wrong, those concepts would no longer have any meaning for you. They are human constructs, not absolutes.

The dragon in the garage: If you look into your empty garage, you have evidence: There is no dragon visible in the garage. That is evidence that there is no dragon. Not a lack of evidence that he does exist. You're doing it the wrong way around. Logically: A = empty garage, B = dragon in my garage: A -> ~B. Having evidence that something does not exist is something entirely different than having NO evidence that something exists.

Any evidence for that?

No. Do you have any to the contrary?

No, I will not give him a break. Why is it not meaningless? Because God says so? What if I say it? Why can God give meaning to things merely by his wishes and we can't? What's so inferior about us? We're sentient beings, we have the ability to make things meaningful.

Sure you can, but at the time, I didn't. I lacked any purpose or wish or goal in life, and that made it meaningless to me. Let me stress that again: TO ME.

[Sordid]

Being omniscient (or, even wiser than human) would put you above good and bad, right and wrong, those concepts would no longer have any meaning for you. They are human constructs, not absolutes.

Um, no. Omniscience merely means infinite and all-encompasing knowledge. I don't see any connection between the amount of knowledge one has and being above morality and good and evil. Or do you think we're more above morality than our iron age ancestors? We do have a lot more knowledge than they did, so by your logic we ought to be.

The dragon in the garage: If you look into your empty garage, you have evidence: There is no dragon visible in the garage. That is evidence that there is no dragon. Not a lack of evidence that he does exist. You're doing it the wrong way around. Logically: A = empty garage, B = dragon in my garage: A -> ~B. Having evidence that something does not exist is something entirely different than having NO evidence that something exists.

But you have no such evidence. The only thing you have is absence of evidence that it exists. It might be invisible.

Any evidence for that?

No. Do you have any to the contrary?

Don't need any. Absence of evidence for your god is enough to justify my disbelief in him, just like the absence of evidence for Ahura Mazda is enough to justify your disbelief in him.

No, I will not give him a break. Why is it not meaningless? Because God says so? What if I say it? Why can God give meaning to things merely by his wishes and we can't? What's so inferior about us? We're sentient beings, we have the ability to make things meaningful.

Sure you can, but at the time, I didn't. I lacked any purpose or wish or goal in life, and that made it meaningless to me. Let me stress that again: TO ME.

So on the one hand you want and claim absolute meaning, on the other you're perfectly aware and emphatically affirm that meaning is a subjective, personal thing. Interesting.

[Andir]

Oh, I get it now... Obviously, Hitler loved the Jewish community and he was merely being a good parent in taking away their cookies for treating him poorly. 

[Siquo]

Um, no. Omniscience merely means infinite and all-encompasing knowledge.

I included the word wiser, and human construct. And I believe you're none the wiser than our forefathers, nor less human.

But you have no such evidence. The only thing you have is absence of evidence that it exists. It might be invisible.

If it's invisible you have no evidence. I do have evidence there is no visible dragon in my garage.

Any evidence for that?

No. Do you have any to the contrary?

Don't need any. Absence of evidence for your god is enough to justify my disbelief in him, just like the absence of evidence for Ahura Mazda is enough to justify your disbelief in him.

And I don't need any to believe in him

So on the one hand you want and claim absolute meaning, on the other you're perfectly aware and emphatically affirm that meaning is a subjective, personal thing. Interesting.

Yes. TO ME it's absolute, what you believe has no impact on that. I don't get my self-worth from the meanings of others.

[dreiche2]

Right. Likewise, when you look into your garage, there's no evidence of a dragon. That does not imply that the dragon does not exist.

I'm not even sure anymore what your position is supposed to be. Here's mine:

1. Lack of evidence does not imply non-existence.

2. Seeing no dragon in your garage is evidence against a dragon in your garage, unless it's invisible. Or you're blind. Or whatever.

3. I agree that lack of evidence can be a good reason to justify belief in non-existence, or to be on the safe side, justifying being agnostic towards the question.

[Siquo]

can be a good reason to justify belief

Note that what dreiche says here, because it's still not a "logical fallacy". That's what this was all about.

[dreiche2]

Yeah just to clarify again, I was merely agreeing with some other people that logically, lack of evidence does not imply non-existence (see Higgs Boson).

But I think it's somewhat besides the point. In practice, what one would want to criticize about (some) religions does not rely on this statement, rather:

1. When it comes to things like creationism and other factual statements, religions tend to ignore contradictory evidence.

2. A tendency to reject evidence and rationalism in general.

3. While something that lacks evidence is still possible, that doesn't mean I should treat it as true if there are many other equally plausible possibilities. That's the irrational part (though still not 'illogical' necessarily), and it becomes problematic when I base decisions on it that impact other people.

[Neruz]

Yeah just to clarify again, I was merely agreeing with some other people that logically, lack of evidence does not imply non-existence (see Higgs Boson).

The whole point about the Higgs Boson is we do have evidence that it should exist, but we can't find the damn thing. That's why everyone is looking for it; current scientific theory dictates that it should be there, which means alot of very smart people are sitting around trying to work out why it apparantly isn't.

[dreiche2]

I'm pretty sure that's not true, the existence of the Higgs Boson is just a hypothesis. At best, there are good reasons to believe the hypothesis to be true (i.e., it seems to be a 'good guess').

But if you don't like that example, there are loads of others. For example certain theories predict the existence of supersymmetric particles, some don't. There is currently lack of evidence, that doesn't mean they don't exist.

Whether supersymmetric particles are a good hypothesis, considering indirect evidence or the explanatory power of the underlying theory, is another question. Again, in practice I reject many religious statements because of contradictory evidence, and many others because of lack of evidence and a lack of what would make such a statement a better explanation than other alternatives. But in the latter case, I'm not doing that because the statements cannot be true logically.

[Neruz]

They don't know for certain that the Higgs-Boson exists, which is why they're looking for it, but a number of theories dictate that a particle with certain properties should exist. These theories have been shown to be experimentally sound (that is they seem to work), ergo that particle (which was named the Higgs-Boson) should also exist.

It's all about shoulds; the Higgs-Boson should exist, that's why everyone is looking for it.

But if you don't like that example, there are loads of others. For example certain theories predict the existence of supersymmetric particles, some don't. There is currently lack of evidence, that doesn't mean they don't exist.

It does, however, mean that you should not operate under the assumption that they do exist, unless you very clearly state that you are doing so.

[dreiche2]

What are you arguing with me about 

The logical issue is not about 'should'.

It does, however, mean that you should not operate under the assumption that they do exist, unless you very clearly state that you are doing so.

Yes!


Also, it doesn't matter to the point in question, but for once stop making unsubstantiated strong claims. The Higgs Boson is just a hypothesis, albeit a good one. But current physics in that field is far too open to say that it "should" exist (emphasis mine):

The Higgs boson, or "God Particle", is a hypothetical massive scalar elementary particle predicted to exist by the Standard Model in particle physics. At present there are no known elementary scalar particles in nature. The existence of the particle is postulated as a means of resolving inconsistencies in current theoretical physics, and attempts are being made to confirm the existence of the particle by experimentation, using the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Other theories exist which do not anticipate the Higgs boson, described elsewhere as the Higgsless model.