If it can be, how can the "Absence of Evidence" be "Evidence of Absence?".

What I would like to know is why they reject Old Man Coyote.The evidence is just as good, and Old Man Coyote is a much more compelling figure.But to be serious, theists generally reject hundreds or tens of thousands of deities in favor of their own particular chosen deity. But how do they choose?The problem with religious apologetics is that scientific evidence does not apply! There is no empirical method for accepting one deity and rejecting all the rest. There is not even empirical evidence for the existence of deities in the first place.The supernatural and an afterlife are a part of the biggest con that mankind has ever played upon itself--but it is a con, a self-deception, in which mankind desperately wants to believe. Considering the alternative that's not surprising. And that's what makes it so easy to sell!And if this doesn't get the thread off to a rousing start of some kind I don't know what else I can do!

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

quote:

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Anyone who can worship a trinity and insist that his religion is a monotheism can believe anything... just give him time to rationalize it.

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Robert A. Heinlein, JOB: A Comedy of Justice

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So this is proof that life can't exist anywhere but earth? No planet with a gravity other than that which we enjoy here on earth could possibly support life?Why should we believe a word of this, given your track record when making pronouncements about science?

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

You must be expecting, then, for creatures to evolve in some manner other than "finely tuned" to their environment?You must be expecting something like that else why would you be so astonished that evolution and natural selection have resulted in creatures that are finely tuned to existing conditions?Fine tuning is what evolution does! And it does it so well that it seems like creatures were "designed" to fit their environment. That's the way nature works.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

Same difference.Species evolved to match existing conditions.If conditions were different, species would have evolved differently, no?And then, wonder of wonders, they would be "fine tuned" for those other conditions!"Fine tuning" is nothing more than god of the gaps apologetics mixed liberally with personal incredulity.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

A Man Said to the Universe

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A man said to the universe:
"Sir, I exist!"
"However," replied the universe,
"The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation."

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Stephen Crane (1871-1900)

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

If age is the criterion, your scripture is even more dated.(Commence backtracking...now!)

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.