eli5: Carl Sagan’s absence of evidence

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Big fan of Carl Sagan, he was like a father figure to me, I’m partially molded by him.
That said, something he used to say all the time really baffled me, still does:
“Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”
He said this when talking about aliens.
However: Sagan was a famous non believer.
How does this aphorism reconcile with the existence or non existence of a god?
If “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” does that apply to a god as well?
Is there a god even though there is no evidence of him/her/it?

In: 95

147 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Good answers, all of them, so thank you.
But none have been simple enough, as in, eLI5:
I ask again:
“If absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” can be applied to aliens (i:e no proof yet, but there might be) why can’t it be applied to a god? (There’s no proof yet of a god, but there might be) I’m ok with this logic, I’m a dolt. But Sagan? He was emphatic about there not being a god.

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