Religion-The Verification Principle Flashcards
what is verificationism?
-a sentence only has a literal meaning if the proposition it expresses is either analytic of synthetic.
an example of an analytic statement
-all bachelors are male
-God is omni-benevolent
True by definition of the words
an example of an empirical statement
-all zebras are black and white
-there is water on other planets
can be proven empirically
an example of a statement which is neither
there is no God
or
there is a God
all nonsense
What does Ayer think of statements which are not verifiable?
statements which are not verifiable are nonsense and therefore both theists and atheists claims are nonsense.
What was Wisdom’s response?
Religious Language Expresses Feelings
- statement such as god exists/god does not exist are an expression of feeling rather than a truth claim therefore they are meaningful.
- glass half full/glass half empty
- Example: the neglected garden: 2 people are looking at a neglected garden. One says there is no gardener the other that the gardener is invisible/there is no physical gardener. Both are an expression of essentially the same thing however they both show different feelings towards it.
- Problem: religious people would not see their beliefs as just an expression of feeling.
What was Braithwaite’s response?
Religious Language is Action Guiding
- religious language is not meaningful but it does give a powerful message.
- Example: The Good Samaritan
- This inspires us to behave in a certain way.
- Problem: wouldn’t behave that way or follow the stories if we didn’t believe there was something behind it-God. There are other reasons we may follow the story-social sciences can offer meaningful empirical explanations for religious behaviour.
What was Durkheim’s response?
See Through Religion
- he believed that the only satisfactory way to make sense of religion was to see through the appearance of the church and see how religious ceremonies alter mental states.
- As an outsider we cannot make sense of religious belief.
What was Evan’s response?
Preformative: a word or phrase the uttering of which carries out or “preforms” the meaning.
The same can be applied to God by saying
“God is the creator of the word” I enter into a relationship with him.
What was Hick’s response?
Eschatological verificationism
- Religious talk is meaningful because if God exists there will be an afterlife whilst if he does not there will not be an after life. Therefore we will prove his existence (or not) empirically.
- Example: Two people are walking down a road. One believes the road will lead to the Celestial city whilst the other believes it leads nowhere. However they both must travel down the road. One one who believes the road leads to the celestial city sees the good they meet as encouragement and the bad as lessons of endurance. The other believes the road leads nowhere but has no choice but to travel and so takes the good with the bad. Their experiences will be the same the only difference is where the road takes them and they can only discover that at the end of the journey.
What does Hick’s first response (eschatological verification) lead to?
Seeing As
- Faith is an interpretative element of human experience. We can chose to interpret something according to our faith. Faith being interpretive is part of our free will.
- Example-the blind men each touching a different part of the elephant and therefore describing the elephant as very different things. God wants us to chose an interpretation otherwise it would not be a belief or faith-free will in necessary.
- The problem-we know what an elephant looks like as a whole-we don’t know God’s whole plan-so how do we know it is like the elephant thing?
What is Flew’s response?
Death by a Thousand Qualifications
-A qualification is altering something, thus a thousand qualifications is many little alterations-in this context about God.
-Flew doesn’t like how “elusive” God is, this can be highlighted by the following example:
-Example: The Invisible Gardner: they set up barbed wire and dogs to try and catch the Gardner but no one is caught. The believer suggests that the gardener is invisible, intangible, elusive Gardner-to which the respective retorts that’s the same as no Gardner at all.
-This basically highlights that no matter what evidence is put before someone who believes they will always alter their argument to fit their belief.
Compare to door open/door closed: will believe no matter what evidence they see to the contrary.
-Example: a more practical example would be when a theist says God loves us like a father loves his children, to which the atheist retorts why does he allow us to suffer, a father wouldn’t watch his children suffer, to which the theist responds not like a human father-God’s love is more than human love.
Keep having to later their argument until God becomes something quite different to the original statement.
What responses are there to Death by a Thousand Qualifications?
Otto:
-A numinous experience is something beyond our understanding.
-contingency to a believer: the nature of things. To a sceptic: the way things happen to be.
a religious experience is an experience of the “nature of things”-contingency what is the “nature of things” is the feeling of absolute dependence upon God-he creates and sustains everything. Therefore so long as religious language takes place within this context it is meaningful. (the feeling of numinous or absolute dependence on God is vital) need the necessary experience to understand it.
Crombie: religious assertions are straddled between the familiar and the transcendent. Therefore Crombie argues for the importance of context as the meaning of words differs (eg contingency) because it is hard to express the otherness of God.
What is Wittgenstein’s response?
Religious Language Games
- language games evolve, have their own rules, you can only understand if you take part, neither religious or scientific language games are better-each is independent
- Example: a priest and a publican both say a prayer: the priest says thank you that I don’t sin and the publican says forgive me for my sins. They are the same prayer because they have the same aim even if they have difference words
