Data: I see fireflies in my backyard every summer. Hypothesis: This summer, I will probably see fireflies in my backyard.
Data: Every dog I meet is friendly. Hypothesis: Most dogs are usually friendly.
Data: I tend to catch colds when people around me are sick. Hypothesis: Colds are infectious.
How does inductive reasoning support a justified belief in God? And which version of God?
You tell me.... I was just pointing out an example of proving a negative from professor Steven Hales of philosophy, at Bloomsburg University, Pennsylvania.
The devil lies in the detail; the definition of 'proof' - if the premises are flawed, it matters not that a conclusion follows from the premises because the conclusion may still be invalid - ie- “all birds can fly, and penguins can’t fly, so penguins aren’t birds”,
It's irrelevant to the issue of an absence of sufficient evidence to prove a proposition. If there is insufficient evidence to support a justified belief that Zeus, Odin, Allah, Brahman, etc, exists, there is no reason to be convinced of their existence.
That can be applied to any of the long list of gods that humankind has believed in over countless millennia.
