The argument of silence, or similar, is also used against lost writings and documents in the form - "since they have never been found, it is likely that the lost texts never existed and ancient people just made them up to improve their lies by citing fictitious sources, which is why they have not been found." And the use of the argument of silence like this, or the use of similar, is even more stupid because we have those citations, quotes and the names of writings as proof of the possible existence of those texts, and it also requires the presupposition that the quoters are lying.
If a person discounts something based upon the silence of authority, is that considered an argument of silence? For example, "I didn't hear about The flying spaghetti monster on the news, therefore the flying spaghetti monster isn't real.
Assuming the News is an expert on spaghetti monsters, and that the question of it being real has become a news topic, then their silence is technically not a silence fallacy. The conclusion is not very strong though. In fact the way you have phrased the example is more akin to the argument from ignorance.
![“อาร์ต พศุตม์” เกือบเอี่ยวทุกคดีดัง เอ๊ะไว้ก่อน ไม่มีอะไรได้มาง่ายๆ | แฉ 16 ต.ค. 67 [2/3] | GMM25](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/0Gx-0-kUBv8/mqdefault.jpg)
The argument of silence, or similar, is also used against lost writings and documents in the form - "since they have never been found, it is likely that the lost texts never existed and ancient people just made them up to improve their lies by citing fictitious sources, which is why they have not been found." And the use of the argument of silence like this, or the use of similar, is even more stupid because we have those citations, quotes and the names of writings as proof of the possible existence of those texts, and it also requires the presupposition that the quoters are lying.
If a person discounts something based upon the silence of authority, is that considered an argument of silence? For example, "I didn't hear about The flying spaghetti monster on the news, therefore the flying spaghetti monster isn't real.
Assuming the News is an expert on spaghetti monsters, and that the question of it being real has become a news topic, then their silence is technically not a silence fallacy. The conclusion is not very strong though. In fact the way you have phrased the example is more akin to the argument from ignorance.
Atheist or Christian?