: Is lack of evidence enough to discount a belief?
It depends on the circumstances. Lack of evidence of God's existence is not enough to discount the existence of God, because we already know that we don't have complete knowledge of the universe, and therefore that new knowledge might come along that definitively proves or disproves it.
However, if I told you that I believed that I had received 3rd degree burns over 90% of my body in a terrible fire, and you looked at my body and saw no scarring, then lack of evidence for burning would surely be proof that no burning had occurred. That's because we have enough experience with fire to know that no one who receives massive 3rd degree burns escapes with no scarring.
Similarly, we know from experience what massive flows of water do to a landscape. Because we see no evidence of massive flows of water on virtually every landscape, we must conclude that there was no massive, global Flood a few thousand years ago.
In the case of earthquakes and traditional Watchtower claims about them, we're not simply going on lack of evidence to discount their claims. We're going on evidence of lack, which is a very different thing. We have actual, physical, documented reports of quakes and deaths going back up to several thousand years. Unless one discounts all such reports -- which of course would mean that people like Watchtower writers could not use it to try to prove their claims -- the reports prove that traditional WTS claims are false. Thus there is no "lack of evidence" to talk about.
I'm sure you're trying to lead this discussion somewhere. How about just "out with it" and tell us what you're getting at?
AlanF