Absence of evidence is evidence of absence, therefore no god?

http://i552.photobucket.com/albums/jj332/jhardesty...

Only to someone who can't see beyond themselves.

The blind man calls all these rainbow talkers idiots....who has ever seen a rainbow....I haven't...so they must not be.

First, although I'm an atheist, I have to disagree with the notion that "absence of evidence is evidence of absence" - though absence of evidence is certainly SUGGESTIVE of absence.

But second, the bar has certainly been lowered on the definition of "miracle" since the stories of miracles in the Bible were written. Do your "testimonies" and "experiences" include things such as walking on water, edible food falling from the sky, raising the dead, regrowing limbs, changing water into wine, and so forth, which violate the observable properties of reality? Or are they things which can certainly be explained without supernatural invention, like "someone changed his mind" or "I got money just when I needed it"?

EDIT: Just because it's from an "atheist poster" doesn't mean all atheists agree with it. I know plenty of Christians who are utterly disgusted by the Westboro Baptist Church - so I certainly don't ascribe the WBC's views to all Christians.

Evidence. Not "stories." If a testimony or "story" about god doing some amazing thing, was the same thing as "evidence" then you have just proven a few hundred gods. People had the same kind of stories about Zeus and Allah. Hey, check out the miracle at Fatima! That proves the blessed mother mary is doing tricks far more effectively than a mere story by an individual.

No, it's not. That's just the explanation you've come up with to describe an event that happened to you - your belief that it was "God" rather than another outside force doesn't mean God exists, just that you think God acted on your behalf regarding a particular episode in your life. Your unexplainable event could have many different causes.

What I would wonder is whether you took a moment during or after the event to wonder if there was a cause, or did you simply say "Well, God was looking out for me" and look no further?

Anecdotal reports are notoriously unreliable, as I'm sure you'd agree if someone were to start ranting on about the miracles performed by Atman, Shiva, Zeus, Odin, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. And all the believers in those gods would reject anecdotal evidence about the Christian god. Why? Because anecdotal evidence about other people's gods is always unreliable.

You reveal your mental wall of prejudice by rejecting others' arguments before you even hear them ("ugh-uh").

Humans are emotional creatures that tend to misinterpret coincidences as miracles, asphyxiation as out of body experience and patterning on a pancake as a picture of Jesus. So I can't trust these supposedly 'unexplainable' testimonies.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence but that does not mean you can't examine the probability of something being true.

Plus, even IF an experience is not explainable, this does not mean the god hypothesis wins by default. That is an argument from ignorance.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. That's like saying that every star that could not be seen without a telescope did not exist 500 years ago and cells did not exist before microscopes.

If your claim is outside the realm of inquiry, then it can't be examined. If it can't be examined, it's not evidence. Testimonies belong there, and miracles are so ill-defined that you need to clarify exactly what you're saying is a miracle.

OF COURSE "Absence of Evidence" doesn't work.

We didn't have "evidence" of "germs" until the 18th century. but people STILL got sick, AND DIED, from disease like syphilis and Black Plague, and various infections.

if "Absence of Evidence" was True, then no one would have gotten sick!

The ONLY evidence of germs before then was "I feel bad" -- and it turned out to be true. yet when WE say "I feel God working" we're told that we are full of s--t, because how i "feel" is not sufficient evidence for the existence of God.

"I feel . . . " was PLENTY of evidence for the existence of germs -- the naysayers were proven wrong! Maybe they need to get smart, adn realize that how I feel about God IS sufficient evidence to prove that He exists.

your logic is flawed, your conclusion does not follow. your reasoning skills are an oxymoron. what the heck are kids taught these days? i can't believe the things that try to pass for reason and logic here. kids just throw things out with little thought.