A Quote by John Lennox

Faith is a response to evidence, not a rejoicing in the absence of evidence.

John Lennox

Quote Topics

Absence Evidence Faith Response

Quote Author

John Lennox
Irish - Mathematician
Born: 1945

There's another way to phrase that and that is that the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. It is basically saying the same thing in a different way. Simply because you do not have evidence that something does exist does not mean that you have evidence that it doesn't exist.

Donald Rumsfeld

But what, after all, is faith? It is a state of mind that leads people to believe something - it doesn't matter what - in the total absence of supporting evidence. If there were good supporting evidence then faith would be superfluous, for the evidence would compel us to believe it anyway. It is this that makes the often-parroted claim that 'evolution itself is a matter of faith' so silly. People believe in evolution not because they arbitrarily want to believe it but because of overwhelming, publicly available evidence.

Richard Dawkins

Even if the absence of evidence for a given god were not evidence of its absence, it would still be evidence that the belief in that god is unreasonable. That's the only proposition that any atheist of any kind has to demonstrate in order to win the argument. Because anything beyond that... is just having fun.

Scott Clifton

We may define "faith" as the firm belief in something for which there is no evidence. Where there is evidence, no one speaks of "faith." We do not speak of faith that two and two are four or that the earth is round. We only speak of faith when we wish to substitute emotion for evidence. The substitution of emotion for evidence is apt to lead to strife, since different groups, substitute different emotions.

Bertrand Russell

Until recent times, absence of evidence for his [Jehovah's] existence has not been sufficient to rule him out. However, we now have enough knowledge that we can identify many places where there should be evidence, but there is not. The absence of that evidence allows us to rule out the existence of this God beyond a reasonable doubt.

Victor J. Stenger

What is faith? If you believe something because you have evidence for it, or rational argument, that is not faith. So faith seems to be believing something despite the absence of evidence or rational argument for it.

Peter Singer

Since when does absence of evidence equate to evidence of absence?

Prince Ea

Doctors most commonly get mixed up between absence of evidence and evidence of abense

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Here's something that intrigues me: If you have faith, you believe regardless of the evidence, yet if there's ever evidence to support faith, everyone goes to it and points to it.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Must faith be exactly that, the willingness and ability to believe in the face of a lack of evidence? If one could find the evidence, would then the faith be dead?

Clifford D. Simak

To a certain extent I am taking a leap of faith. I'm adding up the evidence on either side, and I'm seeing the evidence of there not being a God is overwhelming compared to the evidence for there being a God.

Julia Sweeney

All decisions in the criminal justice system must be determined by the physical and scientific evidence, and the credible testimony corroborated by that evidence, not in response to public outcry.

Robert P. McCulloch

Faith is the element that builds the bridge in the absence of concrete evidence.

Howard W. Hunter

Actually, he gave false evidence [of chemical weapons]. In this case,[John] Kerry didn't even present any evidence. He talked "we have evidence" and he didn't present anything. Not yet, nothing so far ; not a single shred of evidence.

Bashar al-Assad

Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.

Richard Dawkins

Religious faith not only lacks evidence, its independence from evidence is its pride and joy, shouted from the rooftops.

Richard Dawkins