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
Sagan realized that if there is extraterrestrial life, it can be proven; we will eventually find that evidence, although it may take a million generations of humans, as the universe is very, very big.
For god or gods, you’re told what to believe, and by definition, there isn’t any proof, and there isn’t any proof coming.
Sagan realized that if there is extraterrestrial life, it can be proven; we will eventually find that evidence, although it may take a million generations of humans, as the universe is very, very big.
For god or gods, you’re told what to believe, and by definition, there isn’t any proof, and there isn’t any proof coming.
Sagan realized that if there is extraterrestrial life, it can be proven; we will eventually find that evidence, although it may take a million generations of humans, as the universe is very, very big.
For god or gods, you’re told what to believe, and by definition, there isn’t any proof, and there isn’t any proof coming.
Easy…he never said he was “certain” that there was no god, did he? Not believing in something doesn’t equate to knowing it isn’t true. I don’t believe in ghosts or spirits because I haven’t seen evidence of them but I’ve never claimed to know for a fact that they don’t exist.
Easy…he never said he was “certain” that there was no god, did he? Not believing in something doesn’t equate to knowing it isn’t true. I don’t believe in ghosts or spirits because I haven’t seen evidence of them but I’ve never claimed to know for a fact that they don’t exist.
Easy…he never said he was “certain” that there was no god, did he? Not believing in something doesn’t equate to knowing it isn’t true. I don’t believe in ghosts or spirits because I haven’t seen evidence of them but I’ve never claimed to know for a fact that they don’t exist.
To a scientific mind, yes. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, and the question of the existence of God is no different. SPOILER ALERT re: Contact (the novel). If you know Sagan and his views on religion, the very end of his novel Contact (not included in the movie) is shocking. He presents his scientist protagonist discovering pretty uncontravertible evidence of the existence of a creator god who wants his presence known (or at least discoverable to mathematicians). While I was as surprised as anyone at this, I am sure that his point was (a) this is the level at which you’d have to find evidence of God for it to be convincing, and (b) no, scientists are not anti-religion, but will change their views of the world when presented with actual evidence, as this is the very meaning of science.
To a scientific mind, yes. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, and the question of the existence of God is no different. SPOILER ALERT re: Contact (the novel). If you know Sagan and his views on religion, the very end of his novel Contact (not included in the movie) is shocking. He presents his scientist protagonist discovering pretty uncontravertible evidence of the existence of a creator god who wants his presence known (or at least discoverable to mathematicians). While I was as surprised as anyone at this, I am sure that his point was (a) this is the level at which you’d have to find evidence of God for it to be convincing, and (b) no, scientists are not anti-religion, but will change their views of the world when presented with actual evidence, as this is the very meaning of science.
To a scientific mind, yes. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, and the question of the existence of God is no different. SPOILER ALERT re: Contact (the novel). If you know Sagan and his views on religion, the very end of his novel Contact (not included in the movie) is shocking. He presents his scientist protagonist discovering pretty uncontravertible evidence of the existence of a creator god who wants his presence known (or at least discoverable to mathematicians). While I was as surprised as anyone at this, I am sure that his point was (a) this is the level at which you’d have to find evidence of God for it to be convincing, and (b) no, scientists are not anti-religion, but will change their views of the world when presented with actual evidence, as this is the very meaning of science.
Thank you to all who responded.
I decided to ask this here bc I had a chat recently with a good friend about religion. He’s very religious, I’m a quasi atheist.
Anyway. We were talking about aliens (because of the ‘objects’ episode recently and then moved to religion)
He asked: do you believe in aliens? I said: I believe the universe is too big, hundreds of billions of galaxies, hundreds of billions of stars in this galaxy alone, it would be absurd that there’d be no intelligent life elsewhere. He said: but is there any proof? I said “no” there isn’t. But then I used Sagan’s famous quote, the subject of this post.
And he said: “but you don’t believe in god. And you always say the reason you don’t believe in him is because there isn’t evidence of his existence”
“Why can’t your Sagan quote be applied to god? There’s no evidence but he might exist.. if you’re open to the existence of aliens, why aren’t you open to the existence of god?”
Trying to eLH5, I attempted this: “bc it’s way likelier we’d find evidence of aliens, given the immense available sample (the universe) than finding it for a god (there is no sample to use for his/her possible existence other than a bunch of ppl killing each other in his/its name)” he remained unconvinced.
We changed subjects, we chugged a few more beers and that was that.. we’re as friendly as ever.
But I left in doubt & thought: he might have a point, I’ll head over to Reddit and ask for opinions.
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