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Explain the verification and falsification

principles.
The problem with religious language is one of meaning. If we
are to believe in God, we can only do this if we can use
language to talk about it in a meaningful way. If talk of God is
nonsense, then surely the idea of God is nonsense.
One way of establishing whether or not a statement is
meaningful was proposed by A J Ayer, with the verification
principle. His view evolved from logical positivism of the Vienna
Circle, in the 1920s. Logical Positivists believed that if a
statement cannot be confirmed by observation, then it was
meaningless. Ayer thought that they had uncovered a major
problem with language, and so developed the verification
principle in his book Language, truth and logic.
Logical positivists argued that the only way to test a
statements meaningfulness is if it is true analytically, or
synthetically. Analytically true statements are true by definition,
and thought alone. For example, A bachelor is an unmarried
man. Synthetically true statements are verified through our
sense data, for example Dom is a bachelor. They concluded
that religious statements were meaningless, as they do not
satisfy the criteria.
Ayer developed this theory. He believed that empirical methods
have to be used to assess whether a proposition is verifiable,
and therefore meaningful. He decided that a proposition is
meaningful if it is known how to prove it true or false. If we
cannot know how to prove something true or false, then the
proposition is meaningless. Therefore, as religious propositions
cannot be analysed using empirical methods, they are
meaningless.
The falsification principle maintains a similar approach to
religious language as the verification principle. However, it is
regarded as a more serious challenge to the meaningfulness of
religious language. It originates from Karl Poppers philosophy

of science, in which he stated that any theory which is


impossible to disprove is meaningless.
Flew applied this principle to religious language, concluding
that religious statements are meaningless. Flew argued that
this was because there is nothing which can count against
religious statements. They can neither be proved true
(verified), nor false, because religious believers do not accept
any evidence to falsify their beliefs. A Christian would hold to
their belief that God is good, regardless of the evidence
offered against Gods goodness. Flew uses an example of a
father desperate to save his child sick with cancer. Although
God appears indifferent to the childs suffering, he will continue
to qualify his beliefs about Gods love.
Flew stated that these constant qualifications render religious
statements meaningless because they die the death of a
thousand qualifications. He used John Wisdoms Gardener
Analogy to prove his point that religious statements are
meaningless because they allow nothing to count against their
beliefs.
In this analogy, there are two explorers who come upon a clearing in the jungle,
with many flowers. One explorer believes that there it is the work of a gardener,
however the other disagrees. The believer in still convinced there is a gardener
there, regardless of the evidence against his beliefs. Similarly, theists behave in
the same way. They both render themselves meaningless, as their statements
and claims about God are made to fit in any circumstance.

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