To completely dismiss the opinions of others at all times is a sign of narcisism. We should all value atleast somebody else's opinion. — christian2017
Disproving the existence of things doesn't usually involve ruling out the possibility of it's existence. — Echarmion
Unless there is a reason to posit some metaphysical entity, we might as well consider it nonexistent. — Echarmion
Depends on the context. If you run a drug trial and detect no difference compared to the control group, that is evidence of absence (in that case absence of a pharmaceutical effect). — Echarmion
who said that? Its not all or nothing. — christian2017
i disagree with that. — christian2017
Disproving the existence of something means ruling out the possibility of its existence. I know what you mean, but still it is strictly speaking a contradiction. — Devans99
There are many arguments for the existence of God. So there is some (debated) evidence of presence and also no evidence of absence. I do not see now on this basis a fully rational person could dismiss the existence of a deist god with 100% certainty - that leads to a conclusion (with the deist definition of God) that there are no fully rational atheists. — Devans99
I think this is a different situation. Here we have changed something (put drugs into a patient) and noted no effect. So we have positive evidence (that the drug is not working). — Devans99
i dismiss your opinion everytime. Not everyone else. — christian2017
I agree we have evidence of absence. But this evidence is based on absence of evidence - quite literally nothing happening. — Echarmion
Weak/negative atheism is lack of belief in any particular deity. I think it falls under the wider category of of agnosticism. To justify weak atheism, nothing is required because it is a negative belief. — Devans99
Strong/positive atheism is a belief that no deities at all exist (strong atheists assert that "At least one deity exists" is false according to Wikipedia). To justify that belief/assertion, strictly speaking, one has to be sure that no deities exist at all. That requires a proof that no deities at all exist. That is surely unprovable for a deist deity (=no 3Os). — Devans99
But in the drug trial example, you expect something to happen if the drug is effective and it does not so you can reach the conclusion that the drug is not effective.
In terms of God, it would be a like building a God detection device, turning it on and getting a negative result.
In both cases there is evidence of absence (of drug effects / God) rather than absence of evidence. — Devans99
I don't really see what you mean by "proof" here. A "proof" in the strict sense only exists in purely deductive systems like formal logic or mathematics. There is no "proof" of that kind for empirical science, and I don't believe very much can be deduced about metaphysics other than that something exists that thinks my thoughts. But since the possibility of metaphysics are essentially unlimited, it doesn't make sense to call this "being agnostic". Because it would follow that one is agnostic towards everything, from naive realism to the simulation hypothesis. — Echarmion
Well, the quality of the evidence will depend on the circumstances, as I already stated. With God, the problem isn't really about whether the absence of evidence qualifies as evidence of absence but more about how God can even be imagined as a physical entity in the first place and what predictive power such a theory of God would have. Rules such as "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" are only true for purely deductive formal logic, not for inductive empirical science, and are useful shorthands rather than actual rules in the latter. — Echarmion
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