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?

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147 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Something could exist without us knowing it exists. Atheists and agnostics understand this. So, for the most part they are quite willing to accept that they cannot prove the non-existence of God. God might exist even though the non-believers don’t believe it or don’t see evidence of it.

This admission frustrates some believers, who would prefer that non-believers claim to know, or to be able to prove that God doesn’t exist, so the believers can then say “aha! you can’t prove that, so your nonbelief is a kind of faith”.

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