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Originally Posted by GDwarf
It's impossible to disprove something until evidence has been shown for it.
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Not necessarily true, but ok.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GDwarf
That's called the burden of proof, and it's always on the person making the positive claim. As soon as you say that 'X' happens it's up to you to prove that this is the case, only then is it up to me to show it's wrong.
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I know what burden of proof is, I just said that its perfectly within my right to ask you for proof on your end as well.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GDwarf
This may seem unfair or odd to you, but I'll give you an example of why it works this way:
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Not unfair at all. I understand burden of proof.
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Originally Posted by GDwarf
I tell you that there is an invisible dragon in my garage. That's all. I don't tell you why I think this, nor do I let you see my garage. Could I then say that since you cannot disprove my statement there must be a dragon in my garage? Well, no, obviously that isn't how it works.
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I'm not saying that if you can't disprove magic then it must exist. I'm just saying that if you can say it doesn't because there isn't any proof, I can say there are unexplained things that seem to be magic and for you to prove to me that they are not.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GDwarf
If the footprint is my only evidence and you raise enough doubt then I'd be forced to abandon my dragon hypothesis. The same thing holds here. You need some sort of evidence of magic, otherwise why would you accept it? If someone can then point out that the evidence isn't good enough then presumably you'd abandon your view. If you have enough solid evidence to prove the existence of magic then it would become accepted.
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As I said, miracles and "twin ESP." There has been no scientific reason why either exist, and because of this many people say they don't. That doesn't change the fact that there are things out there that do occur that just can't be explained. Perhaps these unexplainable things are only unexplainable because we have no way of explaining magic, much less measuring it. If I said to you, magic exists, and you said it doesn't, and I bring up unexplained things and you have no explanation, that means my unexplained things are plausible evidence and must be disproved before an answer of no can be accepted.
Its just like religion. I'm not sure if you are a religious person, but at any rate, there is no physical proof that God exists, and almost all proof that can be shown can be explained away. But people still believe in God.
Then there are the stubborn people who could be given the most undeniable proof of something, whether it be in the positive to a thought or the negative, and they still believe what they want and ignore the proof. For all I know, I could find absolute proof that magic exists, and show you this proof, but you could still just decide not to believe it exists.