Ann Vole wrote:
Fosgate wrote:
What I mean is that beliefs aren't evidence, and that's all that's been offered so far as such.
including the BELIEF that the supernatural does not exist.
Given what we've seen based on the lack of evidence, belief is about the best way to describe it.
Wayne Stollings wrote:
If you have a calibrated device and acceptable measurement system designed to detect a certain thing, the lack of that thing being detected is evidence that thing does not exist in the area being searched. This does not mean that at some point in the future a better system would not detect the thing where the current system could not.
That’s what I’m saying, yes.
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Now, if you are seeking something which has never been measured but the detector is built for the theoretical attirbutes there is less confidence. But, if the attempt is made over time with newer and different detectors without sucess the probability increases the thing is not really there. It will never be conclusive to the nth degree, but after a few centuries it will start to approach that level.
Sure, it approaches it, but then you have no idea how long the road is either. If you can’t say that the difference of a few centuries is even significant, you’re better off concluding nothing.
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To do this over periods of time builds up the evidence of the lack of that thing existing as different measurement tools become available.
Where you’ve looked…the way you’ve looked. If I hunt in a stuffed, pitch dark closet feeling around with my hands for a month, then by using a box of matches the second month, then a flashlight the third month, the probability increases over time that the earring I can’t find doesn’t exist…in the closet.
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Curing world hunger has been proposed as acceptable evidence of a god or gods.
Would that not be something such an entity could accomplish without our assistance?
The question is not if it could, but if it
would.
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If there is no other explanation for the stoppage of starvation, it owuld be a good piece of evidence.
That is your belief.
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If it existed and had taken an interest in human life, it would be one of the logical points of action.
If? That really depends on the nature of its interest. I could not say unless I believed that it would take such an interest.
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As there is no stoppage it is another small bit of evidence of the lack of action and thus the lack of existence. Not conclusive in and of itself but combined with other small bits of evidence to form larger and larger pieces of evidence.
Once more, these are your beliefs. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
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All of which can be refuted by one small bit of evidence of the existence.
Of course. It’s
your criteria for what makes the list of your
beliefs.