When talking about a deity, the topic of evidence is very quickly raised. I have found that for many people they have an obscure take on what can justifiably count as evidence.

A vast majority of the population will happily point to a bronze-aged book, dictated by illiterate middle eastern peasants, decades after any valid eye witness accounts could have ever taken place, concerning miracles that (I presume I can safely say) never occurred, in an overly mystical area of the world, which were later cherry picked by monks, who would remove and add entire sections of the book at a whim, which then split off in to thousands of separate denominations and will presume that this covers the criteria needed to provide evidence by simply saying the following 6 words.

“You can’t prove its not true.”

This complete burden shifting seems to have worked for many people (William Lane Craig springs to mind)by making the assumption that the simple act of moving the burden of proof is enough to prove their assertion is the correct one.

Bertrand Russell’s famous ‘Teapot’ is still the rebuttal that can be used against the argument from ignorance. Russell stated that it is nonsensical for him to expect others to believe him on the grounds that they cannot prove him wrong in regards to a celestial teapot.

I saw this most recently happen when a creation ‘scientist’ attempted to challenge Richard Dawkins on his evidence for Evolution. Professor Dawkins explained how we have a vast wealth of evidence of evolution in the fossil records, DNA analysis and radiometric dating processes and invited her to attend any museum and see the amazing records of evidence we have collected over hundreds of years for herself. The answer that Wendy Wright gave was almost dumfounding. All she had to say was ‘No, this isn’t evidence.’

What kind of evidence can you give to somebody who holds no respect evidence?

What logical argument can you put forward to somebody who has no regard for logic?

Dawkins could have done little else to provide true evidence of evolution, but it simply wasn’t according the book she was lucky enough to be brainwashed with as a child. This is what I see as the main opposition to evidence based logic. People who simply do not respect evidence.

The people who use that most awful of creation catchphrases ‘Its only a theory’ without realizing that all they are actually doing when they utter that sentence is refute the very claims they lobby for. Lets just hope for our sake that theories aren’t fully supported, well substantiated evidence based conclusions. Because if a theory really is just an idea that some scientists made up, maybe gravity wont be true and they will just float away in to space!

Evidence cannot be circular. What sane person can say ‘I believe this to be true, because it tells me it is true’ and not feel even an ounce of idiocy when they say it. There is nothing wrong with a person saying that they simply don’t know something.

The answer of ‘I don’t know’ should never be a victory for the other side in regards to evidence. If you ask Lawrence Krauss ‘How exactly did the entirety of the universe come in to existence?’ he would answer by saying ‘I don’t know.’ This is not to say he doesn’t have ideas of universal origins, but saying that you do not completely know something should not be an assertion that nobody can know, or that we will never know and it most certainly isn’t something that can be used to prove something as ridiculous as Genesis is true. It is what drives science. Not knowing and having the hungry anticipation of wanting to know.

But if you were to ask the same question to an Evangelical minister, a Muslim Cleric or a Westboro Baptist preacher they would claim to know exactly how the universe came in to existence and for me this sums up religion. The religions of the world are happy to close the book and say ‘Right guys, that’s it. We know everything, we don’t need to provide any more proof than this book that I pick and chose from. No need to find out anything more about anything because this book here, it has ALL the answers!’

It was Neil deGrasse Tyson who said “The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.”