Expert: Austin Cline - 4/30/2008

Question
QUESTION: In your book reviews, (of Atheist Debater's Handbook, etc) why do you make no note of atheists' mistaken contentions that A. we can dismiss any god-notion on the same grounds we dismiss Santa Claus and B. we dismiss Santa Claus based on the fallacy Argument from Ignorance?

ANSWER: A. There's no reason to make note of it in a book review unless it appears in the book and is somehow important to the book.

B. This isn't a fallacious Argument from Ignorance so long as evidence of the being in question can be expected to have been found. It can be the case that an absence of evidence is, indeed, evidence of absence. It all depends on the circumstances.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Some of the books say we conclude God & Santa don't exist because there's no evidence they exist.  Absence of evidence, on its own, is NEVER conclusive evidence of absence.  Only when it's counterevidence.

We don't conclude Santa doesn't exist because we lack of evidence; there's tons of pictures, unreturned letters, first-hand accounts.  

True, if we combed the North Pole & came up short, that specific lack of evidence would be part of the counterevidence.  

But even if the north pole were unexplored, we'd still conclude Santa doesn't exist because the claim itself is outlandish, as with biblical claims about god.

Leaving book reviews out of it, doesn't saying we conclude Yahweh & Santa don't exist due to a lack of evidence (whether as a form of counterevidence or simply Argument From Ignorance) give a poor account of our reasons for such conclusions?  

Answer
"Absence of evidence, on its own, is NEVER conclusive evidence of absence. "

That is a common mistake which many people make. The absence of evidence is very good evidence of absence when the existence of a thing necessarily entails the existence of evidence which, after much searching and testing, cannot be found.

http://atheism.about.com/od/atheismmyths/a/faith.htm

"...doesn't saying we conclude Yahweh & Santa don't exist due to a lack of evidence (whether as a form of counterevidence or simply Argument From Ignorance) give a poor account of our reasons for such conclusions?"

Who is this "we" in "our reasons"? Atheists disbelieve for a wide variety of reasons.

That aside, if believers propose a specific god that entails specific evidence, and a search for that evidence turns up nothing, then that's a perfectly good reason to dismiss the existence of that god.