I understand.

Whether or not something exists and whether or not something happens/happened/can happen are different and should be treated differently.

However, safely assuming is not proving anything either.

I have often wondered about this as well: According to the bible, God had a massive tangible impact on the planet. This no longer happens. Therefore, it is safe to assume that he either died/ceased to exist, gave up on this planet and started another one, went to an alternate dimension, or never existed to begin with. It is my opinion that we cannot prove any of these possibilities one way or the other and as a result, all share the same validity, zero. That said, I do feel that due to the absence of any evidence of the above mentioned possibilities, "never existed to begin with" is the most likely scenario, but I still don't think that proves it.

No, I think if I had to sum it up I would say: If there is no evidence of something that should leave evidence, then we can safely assume that thing is not there (or that if it is there, it's completely irrelevant, and can be disregarded).

Basically, anything that interacts with matter and/or energy (or even just observes them) in the universe we live in, necessarily leaves evidence - That's something we know and can prove, it's not speculation.

Firstly, I made a new thread here because I feel that any comment added to the current mountain of comments on the post would not be addressed to a satisfactory level.

Oh yeah, this is the post I'm talking about

Secondly, the way I have always used the phrase is "Absence (or lack) of proof is not necessarily proof to the contrary". Basically the same thing with different words except the "not necessarily" part. To me this statement by itself cannot be argued against. In the post and comments however, it seemed that everyone who said it was false added some manner of caveat (in this case, when this thing happens, etc.).

After reading some of Custador's comments and replies I gained a better understanding of what his actual message was in the post(or what I thought his message was). As this happened it seemed more and more that the idea conveyed by the title of the post and the message of the post were two separate ideas entirely.

It is entirely possible that this whole thing went way over my head.

I feel like there is something I am missing. Is that how science works? If I cannot prove something is real/exists/happens then that is always/sometimes proof that it isn't real, doesn't exist/happen?