Christian claims are unfalsifiable.

[Paul of Tarsus]

If you're familiar with Christianity at all, then you're unlikely to be told anything that you can falsify about it. Consider the following format for a claim that can be falsified:

Do A.
B should result if you do A.
If B is not the result of doing A, then you know that "B should result if you do A" has been falsified.

The Christian version on its claims takes this format:

Do A.
Supernatural event B (miracle, revelation, etc.) will result if you do A.
If B is not the result of doing A, then believe "Supernatural event B (miracle, revelation, etc.) will result if you do A" anyway. It's your own fault that B didn't happen because you are a faithless sinner and/or God has a plan that does not involve B for you.

The claim is then deemed to be true regardless of the outcome of A.

Another Christian version I've seen recently takes yet another format:

Do A which as far as you can tell has never been done or cannot be done.
Supernatural event B (miracle, revelation, etc.) will result if you do A.

Of course this claim cannot be falsified because doing A is impossible!

So why are all Christian claims unfalsifiable?

[2ndpillar2]

That isn’t Christianity. There is a valid discussion about how philosophical and metaphysical claims are falsified. However, there is no “A” in orthodox Christianity that, if you do it, guarantees that you will receive a miracle, special revelation or other kind of supernatural event.

Jesus disagrees:

John 14:13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

Of course this claim is clearly not true which may explain why "orthodox Christianity" prefers to deny Jesus' claim.


Tcg

John 14:13 would be in reference to the children of God. Your "Christians" would generally be put in the class of "daughters of Babylon", which can only look forward to "her plagues" (Revelation 18:4).

[1213]

...
Do A.
Supernatural event B (miracle, revelation, etc.) will result if you do A.
If B is not the result of doing A, then believe "Supernatural event B (miracle, revelation, etc.) will result if you do A" anyway. It's your own fault that B didn't happen because you are a faithless sinner and/or God has a plan that does not involve B for you.
...
So why are all Christian claims unfalsifiable?

Probably because you form them poorly. For example, in that the claim was inaccurately defined, which led to wrong conclusion.

I can form one that is better:
Bible God created the earth -> if we can observe the earth does not exist, we can falsify the claim.

[Diagoras]

Probably because you form them poorly. For example, in that the claim was inaccurately defined, which led to wrong conclusion.

I can form one that is better:
[?????] created the earth -> if we can observe the earth does not exist, we can falsify the claim.

<edited to make a point>

Could you not simply place anything in the place of those question marks and have an equally falsifiable position?

[Paul of Tarsus]

I consider the problem’s with ‘B’, not ‘A’. When ‘B’ in this scenario is along the lines of:

‘You will have eternal life in heaven’, or

‘The Day of Judgement will happen... soon’

Neither are verifiable - either by virtue of always being in the future (and ‘retconned’ to a further future date as appropriate), or the experimenter not able to reliably confirm the state of affairs once dead.

Yes. Those are two examples of unfalsifiable Christian claims. The only way a promise can be falsifiable is that a time for its fulfillment must be specified (among other criteria). As we all know, we are normally not told when Christ will return, and if we are told the time, then the claim is falsified when Christ again fails to show up.

A good example from another thread:

It would be evidence against a resurrection of mankind having already happened. But not against a future resurrection.

Yes. Tam's logic inspired my starting this thread. Claiming a future resurrection of the dead is, as I explain above, unfalsifiable as long as the time of that resurrection is not specified, and Tam never specified the time. Most Christians including Christ himself (if we can believe what we are told about him) are careful to never make falsifiable claims. As we are told in Acts 1:

6 So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” 7 He replied, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

You would think that Christ telling his followers the time would have been very helpful to them.

[Paul of Tarsus]

So why are all Christian claims unfalsifiable?

1) Years of practice of tweaking stories to get the desired outcome with an added hint of 'supernatural-ness' perhaps?

The promise of answered prayer has been "tweaked" so much that I wonder why Christians bother praying for anything. If God has a plan and knows our fates, then what we want wouldn't matter to him.

2) Or maybe they're real and out of the realm of human understanding?

In other words, Christian claims are legitimately falsifiable, but we just don't know how to falsify them.

While 2 may be the case, it seems that, for many religions, option 1 has always been the root cause. In other words, when all else fails, toss in a bit of 'woo woo' supernatural craziness and you have a 'fact'.

Are you saying that Christian claims are unfalsifiable to lend an aura of mystery to them?

[Paul of Tarsus]

Do A.
B should result if you do A.
If B is not the result of doing A, then you know that "B should result if you do A" has been falsified.

So why are all Christian claims unfalsifiable?

You make a vague claim about Christianity...

What claim is that?

...and then say "all Christian claims are unfalsifiable"? It doesn't follow.

I didn't conclude using a logical deduction that all Christian claims are unfalsifiable but arrived at that conclusion from my study of the Bible.

I offer a position that can falsify my version of Christianity. Find any life that originated outside Earth, then the cohesiveness of my belief collapses. And I'm even willing to stake this forum on the line with this position.

What you're saying here is more a claim about your own beliefs than of Christianity. I don't know of any Christian doctrine that claims there is no biological life beyond the earth. In any case, this claim is unfalsifiable because we cannot tell if "the cohesiveness of your belief collapses" if life was found beyond the earth.

[Paul of Tarsus]

So why are all Christian claims unfalsifiable?

Probably because you form them poorly. For example, in that the claim was inaccurately defined, which led to wrong conclusion.

In other words I'm too stupid to understand what Christians are claiming. It's very common for apologists to insult the critics of their religion this way. Doing so is not only an ad hominem argument but indicates that many apologists are rather desperate to defend their faith.

I can form one that is better:
Bible God created the earth -> if we can observe the earth does not exist, we can falsify the claim.

God creating the earth is an unfalsifiable claim. Whether we can observe the earth or not, we cannot know that God didn't create it. Even if we could not observe the earth, it might still exist somewhere we didn't look, and therefore not observing the earth does not and cannot falsify the claim that God created it.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to Paul of Tarsus in post #17]

What you're saying here is more a claim about your own beliefs than of Christianity. I don't know of any Christian doctrine that claims there is no biological life beyond the earth. In any case, this claim is unfalsifiable because we cannot tell if "the cohesiveness of your belief collapses" if life was found beyond the earth.

He explicitly stated that the cohesiveness if his belief would collapse if any life were found that originated outside Earth (ie. such a discovery would falsify his version of Christianity). So we can "tell" that this would be the case because he directly stated it.

A claim that no biological life exists outside of Earth is easily falsifiable by finding biological life outside of Earth. This is not an unfalsifiable claim.

[otseng]

What you're saying here is more a claim about your own beliefs than of Christianity.

Yes, it is my personal belief, but at least there is an objective way to falsify it.

What claim is that?

"Do A. Supernatural event B (miracle, revelation, etc.) will result if you do A.
If B is not the result of doing A, then believe "Supernatural event B (miracle, revelation, etc.) will result if you do A" anyway. It's your own fault that B didn't happen because you are a faithless sinner and/or God has a plan that does not involve B for you."

I would agree though there are unfalsifiable claims made by Christianity. But, it does not follow that all Christian claims are unfalsifiable.

One way to falsify the foundation of Christianity is to show Christ did not rise from the dead.

1 Cor 15:16-17
For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.

[brunumb]

If a person is willing to pull a couple of verses out of their immediate context and out the context of the Bible on the whole, then that person could get the Bible to say virtually anything.

That works from both sides and is what makes any of the alleged truths contained in the Bible questionable.

"I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it."

Even in the context of the extra passage you quoted, the meaning is perfectly clear, and experience demonstrates that it is totally false.