Take note, Atheists: If you claim to know that God does not exist then you need to be able to prove it.

@ShadowSister


It wouldn't. It is the one who makes the claim that bears the burden of proof.
So the atheist who says "i am not convinced that your god exists" has no burden of proof. But the atheist who says "I know that your god does not exist" is making a knowledge claim which does have a burden of proof.

@Pikachu Have you seen atheists on here making such claims?


I'm actually not sure there is much practical difference between the two. Take this syllogism:

1. If x exists, we would expect to find evidence if it's existence
2. Evidence of X's existence doesn't exist
Therefore
3. X doesn't exist

Of course the flaw comes in the phrase "we would expect to find." This is not a truly deductive argument since 3 does not follow necessarily from 1 and 2. But it's a fairly strong inductive argument.

We use inductive argument all the time. While there is necessarily some measure of uncertainty in any inductive argument, see can often get enough certainty so as to reasonably consider it "knowledge."

To use Hume's example, we can't know deductively that the sun will rise tomorrow. We have to infer it based on the uniformity of all that has come before.

And yet the sun will rise tomorrow. And I can reasonably say I know this to be true.

@ShadowSister Often.
Yes, it's a strong argument but does not remove the possibilities of having reasonable belief in the existence of things we have no direct evidence for.
It is not correct to assume that all things that exist will necessarily provide evidence of their existence that we can detect.
In the community of highly respected scientists some believe* the multi-verse exists. There is simply no direct evidence within our universe and it may potentially not be possible for evidence to cross into our universe, but it's perfectly reasonable. Others believe* there is intelligent life on other planets - no direct evidence of ANY life outside earth and odds far less according to science than the general public appear to assume - but clearly reasonable. Others believe* consciousness is beyond the beginnings of our universe (along with other things if you follow these discussions, including mathematics). The current set of arguments around fine tuning and emergence are also really interesting and are part of what shapes the discussion within the first and last of these three views I listed.
So in the community of science we have sets of arguments that don't ignore evidence - and it may be argued have 'evidences' to support the argument but without anything that constitutes direct evidence.
*Views held to be correct. Reasonable. Not currently provable.

@ShadowSister


Well as you say,3 doesn't necessarily follow logically from 1 and 2 because absence of proof is not proof of absence.



Sure, we can know that something that has happened every day for as long ass humanity has been around to observe it will happen again tomorrow.
But using inductive reasoning how can we make a similar knowledge claim about god?