Absence of Evidence..............

While it's true that the only firm conclusion we can draw is that we have no evidence. We should be able to at least tentatively conclude that the thing doesn't exist until we either find some empirical evidence, or until we have a well tested theory that predicts its existence.For example, as yet, we have no empirical evidence for the city of Atlantis, and until we do, I'm comfortable placing it in the "does not exist" category. Likewise, we have, as yet, no empirical evidence for the Higgs boson, but because it is predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics, which has been widely successful, I'm willing to lean more toward the "does exist" side of the fence.

You could look at this situation another way, though. In your mind, you're not trying to decipher the veracity of the sentence "There is a $100 bill inside this shoebox." What you're really deciphering is your trust in the honesty of the person telling you about the money with respect to a claim like this.If the person who is telling you there is money in the shoebox is a prankster, someone who likes "getting" people, then I would not believe there was $100 dollars in there. If it was a complete stranger, I would not know whether to believe them or not, so I would open the box and try to find empirical evidence. If, after a thorough search of the box, I couldn't find said bill, I would believe I was lied to.As you said, would it prove there was no bill? No. You can't prove a negative. Would it convince you that there was no bill, I would think it should. But either way, we don't take claims at face value, we factor in the situation, the person telling us, and those are empirical clues we can use to go on. Humans are inductive reasoning creatures, and while Inductive reasoning is not logical, it often works out for us.

I know, I was just pointing out that when someone makes a claim, its not made in a vaccuum, you have previous experience, which is empirical evidence. The closest you could come to a claim with no empirical evidence is if a stranger walks up to you and claims there is a $100 bill in the shoebox. But in that situation, I would not take the person's word for it, I would open the box and look. If I couldn't find the bill, I would assume I had been lied to. So, in the absense of empirical evidence, I look for some, and then if I still find none, I assume it isn't there. In this case, I would assume she was perjuring herself. I know my mom (and many on here do too, in fact) and she is at best agnostic on the idea of a soul. If pressed, she does admit that she doesn't believe we have one. That just illustrates my point, a person's claims are backed up by knowledge we already have about that person.

I would disagree here. You "proved" that it was impossible because it couldn't simultaneously be pink and invisible. I would argue that point. It would depend on HOW it was invisible.If something is capable of bending light around it, so that we can't see it's existence, it would be invisible. That does not change the fact that if it stopped bending light around it, it would reflect pink light. I would, still call the unicorn pink if it were currently bending light around it. It's physical makeup which results in it reflecting pink and absorbing everything else does not change dependent on whether it is, at that time, reflecting light. If its completely dark, something does not stop being called a certain color.

If you do action A and see it makes person B feel bad, or hurts them. Is that empirical evidence? If you do action A and notice that it makes you feel bad or hurts you, is that empirical evidence? If so, we could say that those types of observations are the basis upon which we decide what is right or wrong.In fact, if you ascribe to a Utilitarian-esque point of view regarding ethics, it seems to be quite empirical in practice.

Utilitarianism would beg to differ. It states that "good" is that which causes the most happiness. The feeling of happiness is not empirical, but the awareness of the emotion IS empirical.Morals and ethics are solely created by man anyway. There is no Universal "Good" floating around out there that we tap into. I think it is quite possible to say that ethics and morals have evolved due to observation and memories of things that have happened to us in the past.

No. In fact, I think Utilitarianism makes too strong a claim on people. However, I think remembering something that hurt me, whether physically or emotionally, is an empirical observation. Action A led to feeling B. The feeling itself is subjective, but the observation of the causation is empirical. Recognizing that similar situations cause similar feelings in others is also empirical. Thus, asking that people not do what causes me pain, is a logical request. Offering to do the same to others as a means of assuring my request is followed, is likewise logical. First of all, the earth doesn't feel emotions, its rock. Pure Utilitarianism looks only at humans, but there are others who extend the definition of happiness to other species. Yet another group argues that biodiversity leads to a healthier ecosystem, which leads to a healthier human population, which leads to happier peolpe in general, so being eco-conscious is the best thing, not ebcause it ascribes happiness to other animals, but because it ultimately leads to longer term happiness for humans. Regardless, it does deal with the majority. If an action causes 50 people to be happier, but makes 2 people less happy and another action makes 30 people happy, and makes 22 people unhappy, then the first action is the better of the two. It goes further, though and says we should try and find an even better action that would make all 52 people happy, and makes no one unhappy. Utilitarianism is not moral relativism. Death camps causes pain and unhappiness to vast amounts of people. Not having death camps would not cause as much pain and unhappiness, therefore not having death camps is a better choice.Humans create morality. I can see evidence of that, in that feral children have little to no compunction about hurting other people. That would seem to imply that morality is learned, not ingrained. One of the fallacies of this argument is that it implies a false dichotomy. Either support Nazism or support communism. The best choice would have been to oppose Hitler from the beginning, rather than trying appeasement. Once that wasn't an option anymore, allying with Russia to take out Hitler, again, lead to a faster end to Nazism than not allying would have done, thus increasing happiness. Allying with Russia in one instance is not an indication of support of his other actions. Once Nazism is out of the way, it becomes the good thing to do to oppose the communism that is causing unhappiness.To be perfectly clear. I'm not saying Utilitarianism is THE RIGHT way to consider moral questions. But it is an objection to your claim that we can't make moral decisions empirically. In fact, I think it is close to the way people do make decisions. They use past experience in order to decide future action.

No, praying led to the feeling you claim is God's presence. Action A, led to feeling B. If praying leads you to a good feeling, makes you feel better, then I would say you have empirical evidence that praying makes you feel better. It doesn't say anything about where that feeling comes from or why. If I help a friend, it makes me feel good. I now have empirical evidence that doing something to help a friend produces in me a feeling of well-being. Again, it doesn't say why I feel that way or where that feeling comes from. You're taking an experience and trying to get more out of it than can be found in it. For one thing, I didn't mean literally asking. It's more of a, I'm not hurting anyone else, so I shouldn't expect anyone else to hurt me. And yes, it works out quite well for me. I treat everyone else well, and they generally treat me well. You seem to have a poor grasp of what Utilitarianism says, and that may be partly my fault for explaining it poorly. When it talks about "increasing happiness" it looks not only at the present but the future. Paying young women to give birth is going to lead to massive unhappiness. First of all, the children are not all going to be well cared for, thus bringing them into the world is a "bad" decision. Secondly, the Earth is becoming over-populated as it is. There are food shortages right now in some countries, so increasing the Earth's population will lead to even more people trying to eat a shrinking food supply, leading to less happiness.As to your first point. First of all, better for the species is not the same as creating more happiness. It would take a serious study to look at probabilities of passing on an inheritable disease, the amount of unhappiness that disease causes on the person who has it. If they are able to live a full happy life, then the relatively rare incidence of the disease is not cause enough to force someone not to have children. In fact, the completely Utilitarian view would be funding a cure for the disease. Stem-cell research and genetic therapy would be the chief avenues of research in this example. Again, you need to look at the forseeable future. Hitler was engaged in an attempt to conquer the world and inflict his pain and suffering over the entire population of the planet (or at least that section of it that he saw as unfit). Stalin was contentedly operating within Russia, quite a smaller group of potential victims. Also, I would need to do more research to determine if your numbers are accurate, I'm going to accept them as so. In effect, we are forced with two bad decisions, and any moral theory would have you choose one of them. In terms of future generations, it was better to stop Hitler first, then try to stop Stalin. Again, Stalin was a monster, but he was not actively trying to conquer the world and kill even more people. Do you honestly think that letting Hitler control the world would have resulted in less deaths than letting Stalin have Russia, or even Eastern Europe. I think we handled Stalin and Russia very poorly. Again, the best course of action would have been to stop Hitler when he first began breaking the treaty that ended WWI by building up an army. At the very least, we should have kept a much closer eye on him and stopped him when he went after Poland. That would have given us more opportunity and resources to try and stop Stalin. WWII was a mash of bad decisions leading to only bad options. I think Hitler was a greater threat to more people than Stalin was, based on their actions up until the mid 1940s.

I agree. I was never trying to advocate Utilitarianism. I disagree with it. I was merely pointing out that there are theories that say you can empirically decide right and wrong. I think it is naive to think there is some Universal Morality out there, and we just happen to have stumbled onto it. I don't think it will stop everyone from hurting me, and I am quite aware that there are people who would willingly take advantage of a person who did. I just think I get a better chance at being treated well if I treat others well. Being an asshole generally leads others to treat you like one.Past experience is empirical, and people almost always use past experience to make decisions. It is also true that people make decisions based on non-empirical reasons, but I don't think Straggler would disagree with that (I may be wrong). I think what he's trying to say is that reliable decisions require empirical evidence.As to Hitler vs. Stalin: Hitler, during his reign, was able to kill between 11 and 14 million people (according to Wikipedia) and Stalin was able to kill at most 30 million (again according to Wikipedia)and that was over a much longer period. I would say it is quite clear that were Hitler not stopped, he would have killed far more than Stalin did. Pol Pot and China, etc has no bearing on whether it was better to ally with Stalin to stop Hitler.Regardless, Stalin and Hitler are far off topic, and I think we agree on the point. If not, maybe we should start a new thread.