Picture the scene...
There's a murder in a devoutly Religious town. A man is found on his back in a pool of his own blood with an ancient, muddy, rusty blade sticking out of his heart.
The Police turn up and look around but find no evidence.
Detectives wander through, looking around and the same story; no signs of struggle, no money problems, no known enemies.
Forensics take a peek over the crime scene. They find no fingerprints or DNA to do with the murder but there is evidence of a second occupant of the flat; a woman, probably a lover. The only extra information they can deliver is a ballpark time of death of 10 hours earlier.
Specialist crime scene investigators search through the data and details; same story, even with all the high technology at their disposal.
No evidence is found of an attacker.
There is a prime suspect, the man's partner, a painter of landscapes; she was overheard threatening her lover a month before.
Witnesses say they "know she packed and left the flat within days", others say they've "not seen her for about a month or so" and a few witnesses say "she had plans to travel the country in an old camper-van".
She is finally located, living halfway up a mountain, deep in the forest.
She's arrested and the case goes to trial.
The verdict comes in and the Judge delivers the sentence saying.
"The devoutly Religious jury has decided that even though we have an absence of evidence which places you at the scene, there's is no direct evidence of your absence from it, so you must be the murderer. And I'm good with that because I'm a devout believer too and as we all know "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" and, if it's good enough for god, it's good enough for you. You are sentence to death."
So the questions here are obvious...
Should it ever happen, would we not consider this to be an appalling travesty of justice?
Would it not cause outrage in society for lack of good reasoning?
Would it not be overturned on appeal and the first judge 'retired' for lack of a brain?
Would there not be calls for the judge, prosecutors, jury and police force, if not the entire town, to be sent on an short, sharp anti-fuckwit course?
There is an
absence of evidence for the mythical being 'Snow White' but, as far as I'm aware, there are no
SnowWhite-ian worshippers, no
Order of the Brotherhood of the Dwarves claiming that the absence of evidence of Miss White's existence is not evidence of her historical absence.
So why do Religious apologists think it's a sufficient catch-all, the be all and end all refutation of the statement 'there is no evidence of a god'?
How can they be so dishonest as to find it an unacceptable line of reasoning in our places of justice but a totally acceptable way to justify belief in their mythical being?
And the answer is? - Fear, on so many levels.
As it turns out, the butler did it but there's no evidence of that either.
This is one of the Too Many Questions
PEACE
Crispy
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