Quote from: Washu Chan on October 22, 2009, 09:23:46 PM
I am undecided on the matter due to lack of clear evidence from either side.
Atheist side: There is a complete lack of evidence to support the existence of God there for (s)he must not exist.
Well, at risk of being tagged a pedant, one doesn't need to assert that god
must not exist to be atheist, just that one has an absence of belief. In my case, I can't deny there is a finite possibility that god exists but the overwhelming dearth of supporting evidence suggests that the possibility is vanishingly small, so I don't believe god does exist.
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Counter argument: Lack of evidence does not constitute evidence of lack.
True but that's a toothless universal truth as it can apply to any hypothesis, no matter how bizarre. There are probably an infinite number of permutations one could come up with on all manner of entities and phenomena, yet our ability to study, experiment and learn is finite.
Hence we need to prioritize our endeavours by focusing on those hypotheses that show potential, which invariably means those that have at least some supporting evidence to suggest there's something to the hypothesis. (See my article on
the importance of experimental observation for a more detailed response).
