Why are all theistic claims untestable?

[Justin108]

"God exists"
"The Bible is the word of God"
"Prayer works"
"Miracles happen"
"There is an afterlife"

Why are all theistic claims untestable?

[William]

If a claim is tested, one should be able to accept both a positive and a negative outcome as evidence. That means that if you test something (like prayer), you should be equally prepared to conclude, based on your test, that prayer is either effective or ineffective. This is what is known as falsifiability.

For example, you pray for something
- if your prayer comes true, then prayer probably works
- if your prayer does not come true, then prayer probably does not work.

This is how testing a claim is normally done. However, in reality, when a theist tests this claim, it looks something like this.

You pray for something
- if your prayer comes true, then prayer works
- if your prayer does not come true, then God probably had his reasons but prayer still works

See the difference? When a theist tests a divine claim, they are never prepared to accept a negative outcome. When a theist tests a divine claim, they will always pollute the test with confirmation bias.

I understand what you are saying here but if it is true of theists then it must be equally true of atheists. Either way there is confirmation bias, and it is evident in your above statements.

The underlying difference between the atheist and the theist in relation to confirmation bias is that a theist has belief in GOD and and Atheist lacks belief in GOD and thus the test will reflect that bias, whichever way it is done.

Fine. Give me a way to test a theistic claim. What should I do to test it? How can I identify a positive outcome? How can I identify a negative outcome?

Specifically are you wanting the test to produce scientific evidence which can be repeated or are you just wanting to know for your self as a subjective self conscious awareness whether prayer works?

In other words, are you just wanting to observe or are you wanting to participate?

Because if you are just wanting to observe, and collect data of an empirical nature which can be replicated by others also in observation roles, then you are correct in that essentially GOD is the focus (be it in examining prayer or other things to do with GOD) and the scientific process involved in gathering such data is not a useful device and such theistic claims (that GOD exists and answers prayer) are untestable using that process. I think where you err though, is in the reasons you say as to WHY they are untestable.

I will gladly do a test. Just stipulate what I need to do to test a theistic claim and I will gladly do so.

Well I did outline one, but you rejected it on the grounds that it was historical of nature and you did not wish to test such claims.

Perhaps though it really has to do with you wanting an observers role in the process and the example obviously asks the person to have a participating role in the process.

There are two main asspects to the theist understanding of evidence related to GOD existing.

The theist participates - which is significantly subjective role.

The other is that the theist is dealing with and actual entity which has its own rules as to what is involved in the connection between the individual and the entity. The Theist sees the evidence of the Entities handiwork in the creation - in the things of natural creation - those things go together to make up the evidence.
In relation to GOD revealing its existence in a more personal manner - entity to entity, self aware being to self aware being, the being referred to as GOD is in a more knowing position than the individual human being, and thus the human being includes that matter of fact into the equation and if - as you point out - the prayer is not answered, the individual does not conclude that GOD therefore does not exist, or that prayer therefore does not work.

Often prayer working is what motivates the individual to keep moving further into a relationship with the GOD, but also the individual has preconceptions as to the nature of GOD and these can often be false, so the GOD will desist with playing the role of the genie who gives the individual what the individual wishes for, in order to introduce the opportunity for the individual to learn just exactly what the entity GOD is really all about.

Subjectively speaking - and individual who wants to know the nature of GOD and connect with the entity and get to know the entity is eventually going to find out that it is a vast 'rabbit hole' one has ventured into and some prefer to stay near the entrance and enjoy their experience from that position, while others get curiouser and curiouser. < think 'cat grin'.

But that is no place present day science can explore. It has enough to do examining the the rabbit hole that the universe is.

So perhaps you are correct about theist claims, but all of them? Randi seemed to think otherwise, and proved that those particular type of claims were bogus - but whether the claimants can be actually called theists rather than tricksters making a buck from the gullible while calling themselves theists, is another question.

What is a real theist?

Questions questions and more questions.

[William]

[Replying to post 18 by McCulloch]

The truly amazing thing is that since Christianity began in the first century, not a single faithful Christian has ever been homeless, starving or without suitable clothing. This is a truly remarkable fact. I am constantly astounded that Christian apologists do not make more of this.

Well observed, but you forgot to mention how money provided this for all those Christians.

On the surface this signifies that those who say Christianity is an invention of Jesus and that Christians follow Jesus, have not taken such things into account before making such claims.

[William]

[Replying to post 20 by rikuoamero]

Okay, so given that you are a Christian, and that you are doing God's will, try moving a mountain or two for us please? Oh, and by the way, try to limit the collateral damage as much as possible!

What makes you think that the saying is to be taken literally?

[liamconnor]

[Replying to post 1 by Justin108]

Why are all theistic claims untestable?

Testable how? I find the historical claims of some religions to be 'testable', that is, by historical scrutiny.

But yes, others, by nature are not testable; religious claims are not the only ones that cannot be verified by the scientific method.

"God exists"

There are other claims which we cannot prove by the scientific method; instead, we look at the data and construct a theory that accounts for it in the simplest manner. The Big Bang cannot be verified by the scientific method: instead, we look at the universe as is and attempt a theory that explains it.

"The Bible is the word of God"

this one I agree is the weakest claim of Christians. For one thing, we aren't all agreed on what that means! It should be noted that the biblical authors spent little time defending their Bibles as the Word of God.

"Prayer works"

I presume we mean supplication. And by 'works' it is meant 'is efficient; is granted'. But prayer is by nature a request. In the natural life, requests are made and often denied. There is no reason why God cannot deny a request.

"Miracles happen"

A miracle is an event and therefore belongs to the science of history. In my opinion, miracles can be supported by historical methods.

"There is an afterlife"

Uhh....technically quite testable. But I'd rather you not take that test. We would miss you here.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 20 by rikuoamero]

Okay, so given that you are a Christian, and that you are doing God's will, try moving a mountain or two for us please? Oh, and by the way, try to limit the collateral damage as much as possible!

What makes you think that the saying is to be taken literally?

Why not? Why not take it literally? It's taking the claims as fairly as possible - if mountains don't move, then the claims are proven false.
Your approach isn't fair, it allows a constant moving of goalposts.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 24 by liamconnor]

I presume we mean supplication. And by 'works' it is meant 'is efficient; is granted'. But prayer is by nature a request. In the natural life, requests are made and often denied. There is no reason why God cannot deny a request.

Liam, send an email to ihelppeople (at) pmail dot com, asking for help with a college loan or something.
Then tell us what the results are of this request. Do you get a response back saying
"Yes, we have read your email and will help you" or
"No, we have read your email and will not help you" or
"Hmm...we have read your email and will get back to you later on this. This isn't saying no, it's a maybe"

If (or should I say when) you do NOT hear back from them, will you describe the communication as being one of the above three?

This is the criticism atheists like myself have when we're told about prayer. Theists generally do not allow the non-existence of God to be a valid explanation for why prayers do not go answered. If someone prays and there is no response, oh it's not because God isn't there...that can't be considered. That's not a valid explanation.

Uhh....technically quite testable. But I'd rather you not take that test. We would miss you here.

How would one communicate the results of said test to the rest of us?

[Justin108]

If a claim is tested, one should be able to accept both a positive and a negative outcome as evidence. That means that if you test something (like prayer), you should be equally prepared to conclude, based on your test, that prayer is either effective or ineffective. This is what is known as falsifiability.

For example, you pray for something
- if your prayer comes true, then prayer probably works
- if your prayer does not come true, then prayer probably does not work.

This is how testing a claim is normally done. However, in reality, when a theist tests this claim, it looks something like this.

You pray for something
- if your prayer comes true, then prayer works
- if your prayer does not come true, then God probably had his reasons but prayer still works

See the difference? When a theist tests a divine claim, they are never prepared to accept a negative outcome. When a theist tests a divine claim, they will always pollute the test with confirmation bias.

I understand what you are saying here but if it is true of theists then it must be equally true of atheists. Either way there is confirmation bias, and it is evident in your above statements.

Which proves my initial claim that prayer is untestable... which you then argued against.

The underlying difference between the atheist and the theist in relation to confirmation bias is that a theist has belief in GOD and and Atheist lacks belief in GOD and thus the test will reflect that bias, whichever way it is done.

My bias aside, show me a theist praying for his limb to grow back, followed by his limb growing back, and this will be a confirmed case of prayer working.

Fine. Give me a way to test a theistic claim. What should I do to test it? How can I identify a positive outcome? How can I identify a negative outcome?

Specifically are you wanting the test to produce scientific evidence which can be repeated or are you just wanting to know for your self as a subjective self conscious awareness whether prayer works?

In other words, are you just wanting to observe or are you wanting to participate?

Either would suffice. All I need is for there to be a possible negative outcome. It should be possible for me to test the theistic claim, for the test to fail, and for me to conclude based on the failure that the theistic claim is false. In short, I want the test to be falsifiable. I don't want a failure of the test to be met by "well I'm sure God had his reasons".

I will gladly do a test. Just stipulate what I need to do to test a theistic claim and I will gladly do so.

Well I did outline one, but you rejected it on the grounds that it was historical of nature and you did not wish to test such claims.

I must have missed it. Can you perhaps repeat the test you mentioned?

[Justin108]

Why are all theistic claims untestable?

Testable how? I find the historical claims of some religions to be 'testable', that is, by historical scrutiny.

Testable as in "X is claimed, I will now do Y to see if X is factually true".

"Prayer works"

I presume we mean supplication. And by 'works' it is meant 'is efficient; is granted'. But prayer is by nature a request. In the natural life, requests are made and often denied. There is no reason why God cannot deny a request.

What I find curious is why certain requests are always denied whereas others are often not. A request for someone to regrow an amputated limb is always denied, whereas a request for cancer to go into remission is often granted. Incidentally, we know that cancer often does go into remission whereas limb regeneration is impossible. So God seems to only care to answer prayers that might come true anyway.

[Mithrae]

I have rarely if ever seen someone specify that the nature of a 'miracle' must be such that it excludes even the faintest possibilities of any supposedly 'natural' explanation in future centuries!

I typed "What is a miracle" into Google and here's what I got

an extraordinary and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore attributed to a divine agency.

From ChristianCourier.com . . . .
[snipped]

That's a sceptic's moving goalpost, not the theist claim.

If anything, what I got there was from theists. Note the times it said things like "cannot happen according to the laws of nature" (or words to that effect). Notice that there is no stipulation that the laws of nature have to actually be known/understood, just that nature cannot do these things.

Did you notice that both of those Christian sources refer to Jesus' healing of people who were blind, lame and so on as 'miracles'? Without any kind of diagnosis or follow-up it is quite literally impossible to maintain that those healings excluded even the faintest possibility of 'natural' explanations. We've got people right here and now, in this thread, supposing some possibility of 'natural' explanations for the rapid cures of blind and lame people at Lourdes for which there is thorough documentation, diagnosis, follow-up and professional medical confirmation that they're currently unexplained! Jesus' far more poorly-documented healings are widely if not universally considered archetypes of Christian 'miracles,' onto which it is projected/assumed that they were not natural occurrences: But that obviously is not the same thing as the sceptic criteria which demands that all faint possibilities of 'natural' explanations in any future centuries must be excluded!

In fact many Christians are actively keen to find 'natural' phenomena explaining more prominent biblical miracles; for example the theory that the plagues on Egypt may have resulted partly or wholly from the massive volcanic eruption of Thera in the Aegean Sea. This clearly does not suggest that 'natural' explanations are inconsistent with the miraculous nature of an event, in their view: On the contrary, what they consider to be important is the timing and significance of the event/s, and fixating on some presupposition about what mechanisms God is or is not allowed to have used in bringing it about entirely misses the point! Potentially explaining a miracle such as the Exodus only enhances its historical and apologetic plausibility, in their view.

On a related note, would you mind sharing your thoughts on the hypothetical in my earlier post?

"If scientists of future decades unanimously confirmed that human brains somehow attracted/generated a field of, say, dark matter which could somehow be demonstrated to remain coherent and retain most memory and personality traits after death of the ordinary matter body, we can all too easily recognize the probability of folk calling it a natural phenomenon and nothing to do with any kind of deity."

I'm going to step in and ask...where, in your hypothetical, is there mention by these future scientists of a deity?
I see none. I see talk of dark matter, of it somehow retaining what is essentially our ego. That is what these future scientists are confirming.
Where is God in all of this? So even if future scientists do *precisely* what you say there, why should we say that it has something to do with a God?

It would be clear and unequivocal confirmation of one of the most remarkable and fundamental claims of various religions and yet, as you note, that would still be judged of no significance by many people.


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"If scientists of future decades unanimously confirmed that human brains somehow attracted/generated a field of, say, dark matter which could somehow be demonstrated to remain coherent and retain most memory and personality traits after death of the ordinary matter body, we can all too easily recognize the probability of folk calling it a natural phenomenon and nothing to do with any kind of deity."

In post 8, I clarified my OP. Proving some kind of dark matter afterlife is a far stretch from Biblical claims of heaven.

And if it was also somehow shown that 'dark' matter beings (which are occasionally capable of being perceived in our world as shining beings of light) had built a big city kind of looking like a 'New Jerusalem' 12,000 stadia long and high and wide, that still wouldn't prove anything if we couldn't see gates of gold and a tree of life

I have no doubt whatsoever that if half a dozen cases of limb regeneration had been confirmed, many folk would therefore insist that it's something the body can occasionally do, somehow, even though it's not medically explained

And I have no doubt that I would not be part of these "many folk", especially if these cases of limb regeneration were preceded by prayer.

When prayer and faith appears - occasionally - to be answered with rapid, medically-unexplained cures of serious illness, I rather suspect that it fully and completely fits the claim of what a miracle would look like.

It also fits the claim that illness is not fully understood and these anomalies tend to happen, even among non-believers and those who do not pray.

If cancer remission is proof that prayer works, then how do you explain cancer remission among unbelievers? Are you of the opinion that only believers experience rapid, medically-unexplained cures of serious illness?

Any utterly inexplicable event could be dismissed as fitting the claim that our current knowledge is imperfect. You're talking about falsifiability, yet defending a deliberately unfalsifiable position. Well granted, for your own part you've suggested that limb regrowth would satisfy you, confident in the belief that it hasn't actually occurred... yet. But it does occur in some animals and scientists are currently hopeful that it might be replicated in humans - so if there had been some confirmed cases in the past, I trust you'll understand my suspicion that it would not be held up as the conclusive falsification criteria.

I don't hold any opinions on how frequently, to whom, or why rapid medically-unexplained cures of serious illnesses occur. But I would suggest that it is illogical to suppose that a phenomenon occurring to folk who don't hold a particular religious view means that it must be a 'natural' phenomenon! That's a pretty big gap in reasoning to leap over. Even the Christian scriptures describe cures given to folk of other faiths who asked for them (eg. Naaman, the Syrophoenician woman).

I have rarely if ever seen someone specify that the nature of a 'miracle' must be such that it excludes even the faint possibility of any 'natural' explanation in future centuries! That's a sceptic's moving goalpost, not the theist claim.

How do you define "miracle"?

Personally I try to be wary about terms like 'miracle,' though at least it's not as unhelpful as 'supernatural' (or 'natural,' for that matter). As I already hinted, it seems a tautological truth that everything which occurs must conform to the nature of reality, else it wouldn't be real. So a term like supernatural is incoherent, while a term like 'natural' is often unhelpful or confusing when carelessly thrown around.

The useful distinctions we have are between our common/scientific understanding of how reality normally behaves (which can be extrapolated into a notion of how reality always behaves, philosophical naturalism) on the one hand, and the claims or reported observations which are anomalies, exceptions or apparent 'violations' of that understanding on the other. 'Paranormal' is probably the best word to describe the latter, despite unfortunately conjuring up mental imagery of wide-eyed ghost hunters and crop circle enthusiasts However regarding events in a religious context, 'miracle' serves well enough most of the time.

Most people, most of the time know what is meant by 'miracle' - a scientifically inexplicable event attributed to divine agency. And as I noted in response to Rikuo, in the specific case of Christianity archetypes like the miraculous healings of Jesus provide a pretty clear baseline of what is meant by the term.

The confusion only arises when medically-unexplained rapid cures of serious illnesses far more carefully documented and confirmed than Jesus' show that miracles do occur

[Justin108]

In post 8, I clarified my OP. Proving some kind of dark matter afterlife is a far stretch from Biblical claims of heaven.

And if it was also somehow shown that 'dark' matter beings (which are occasionally capable of being perceived in our world as shining beings of light) had built a big city kind of looking like a 'New Jerusalem' 12,000 stadia long and high and wide, that still wouldn't prove anything if we couldn't see gates of gold and a tree of life

Do you take that position? Or do you just assume I would take that position?

The confusion only arises when medically-unexplained rapid cures of serious illnesses far more carefully documented and confirmed than Jesus' show that miracles do occur

Why are you winking at me?