Falsification of the Mormon Church

[_antishock8]

Wow, Cinepro. That was an excellent post.

[_guy sajer]

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints could be falsified if:


1. It could be shown in an unequivocal, empirical manner that Jesus Christ did not rise from the dead.

Over thousands of years of existence of the human and non-human species, there have been billions upon billion of organisms that have died. Of these billions and billions, there exists not one recorded, objectively verifiable account of a human or non-human who had died who has subsequently become reanimated to live again. Only stories that exist in various religious mythologies in which the account of Christ's resurrection deserves no more consideration than any other account in, say, Norse mythology.

The empirical count:

Non-resurrected dead organisms: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 etc.

Resurrected dead organisms: 0.

Empirical case closed.

[_antishock8]

Well, since we want to have an intelligent discussion, and you're the one making the assertion. Please do the following:

1. Show in an unequivocal, empirical manner that Jesus Christ rose from the dead.

2. Show in an unequivocal, empirical manner, that God exists.

3. Show in an unequivocal, empirical manner, that the First Vision occurred.

4. Show in an unequivocal, empirical manner, that there is life after death.

5. Show in an unequivocal, empirical manner, that the witness of the Spirit is not explainable
purely by mechanistic, or neurobiological processes.

6. Show in an unequivocal, empirical manner, that Book of Mormon people existed.

I usually don't like inverting an argument to make a point, but since proving a negative is silly when it comes to religious assertion I think we need to start with proving your assertions.

[_Tal Bachman]

Why is unfalsifiability "not a good thing"?

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

---THAT is the funniest thing I've ever read on this board! LOL I have to use it as a tag on my posts from now on lol.

Gadianton is exactly right in saying that what Coggins has done is shoot a Howitzer shell into his own foot (not that Coggins knows or cares).

It is a pity, but all this thread has shown is that I was right about Cog (and several others) all along. In terms of ever coming to grips with what Mormonism can and cannot be, Coggins is in the "write-off" file, at least for the foreseeable future.

Verdict: Coggins deserves Mormonism, and Mormonism deserves him.

Out,

T.

[_Tarski]

I posted a parody of coggin's idea of falsifiability.

If you really wish to test the level of you cleverness, then rather than using the "Church of Leprechauns", how about using secular science--scientific laws in particular, or univeral statements generally accepted in secular science, both of which are non-falsifiable?

Once you do that, then we can talk about what your parody suggests about science, and then juxtapose that against what some may suppose non-falsifiability may mean in terms of religion. ;-)

Then, one may ask why some still worship at the alter of falsifiability when the prevailing philosophy in modern science is probabalistic induction?

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

For your information:

1. It was not I that brought up a falsifiability claim worthy of ridicule or brought up falsifiability in the first place.
2. What needs to be falsifiable in science is specific claims that can be tested. One of those claims is not "science is true" or any such similar thing.
We don't make such universal claims. We leave that to religion.
As for what the foundational philosophy of science might be, I think you are mistaken. You are mistaken because science goes onward in roughly the same way dispite various philosophical fashions that may come and go. But it is generally agreed that if there is no practical way to test a theory even indirectly then that theory is not long for this world. Falsifiability, verifiability, theoretical clarity, and many other things are seen as important virtues but none form the foundation of science by themselves. Science is a practical human endeaver. We observe, think, collect data, have discourse, and form theories that we put up to be tested in anyway that we think relevant. We try to think of things that could defeat the theory and then perform those experiments.
We do not waste time trying to falsify the very notion of an experiment as a truth seeking method or the very notion of rationality and so on.
By the way, even historical theories can be tested. For example the theory of evolution makes predictions. A recent example is the human chromosome number two fusion. We test those things all the time by digging etc. It is falsifiable because just one good find in the lower geological strata could challenge the whole theory (finding a vertibrate far below the layers it should be found , for example)
Coggin examples were not appropriate. They are not what is meant by asking for falsifiable aspects of theory.
If you want an example, here
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... ex=1&hl=en

Coggin's examples were not appropriate at all. they miss the mark wildly. They are not what is meant by asking for falsifiable aspects of a theory. No scientist would make statements of that sort. My parody shows why.

Are you suggesting that such a parody couldn't be drawn from science--whether you think it would miss the mark or not?

Of course individual aspects of evolution can be tested. But, the theory as a whole cannot be falsified--particularly given the paradigm-protecting use of ad hoc hypothesis. -

LOL, You are out of your mind. (and wrong--the whole theory is just as falsifiable as any good theory, its really past that point too! Is the theory that the earth is not flat falsifiable?)

[_asbestosman]

is the theory that the earth is not flat falsifiable?

Yes, but someone would have to make it flat before that could happen.

[_Moniker]

This thread has at the outset attracted, as I feared, all the Momondiscussion.com garden pests who have no intention of carrying forth a serious, critical, creative, and philosophically sophisticated debate.

Guffaw!

I'm no doubt a pest, yet, I do so enjoy watching you get your tushee spanked by the philosophically sophisticated that showed up for your thread! :)

[_cinepro]

As alluded to in my previous post, here are some claims that some LDS might make that could be falsifiable:

1. LDS Priesthood holders have the power to heal illnesses beyond the capability of medical science, and with a greater success rate than a placebo.

2. LDS Seers have the ability to render a language unknown to them into a language that is known by them.

3. LDS Apostles and Prophets receive direction from an omnipotent being with advanced knowledge of all scientific and ethical principles that will ever be known.

4. Sometime between 3,000 and 2,000 BC (CES Old Testament manual says 2344 BC), a catastrophic flood covered the entire Earth and destroyed all animal and human life except for 8 humans and a set of breeding animals that were preserved in a floating ark.

5. All human beings currently alive today trace their ancestry to two (and only two) humans who began having children around 4,000 BC.

Having been LDS my entire life, my brain automatically called all the reasons these falsifiable claims could never actually be falsified. But sadly I was also able to see how pathetic these excuses were at the same time I was thinking of them. Maybe you've come up with some excuses I haven't, and maybe they'll be better than mine.

If you agree that any of the above points are actually falsifiable, I would try to find a way to make them unfalsifiable ASAP.

[_wenglund]

Are you aware that scientific laws are unfalsifiable?

What on earth? Name one scientific law that is not falsifiable. There some scientific musings/ideas that may be unfalsifiable (e.g. string theory), but no scientific laws and no scientific theories.

Eallusion is correct. I should have said "metaphysical foundations to scientific reasoning" rather than scientific laws.

Yes , the theory of evolution is falsifiable. If we find complex life far ahead of when evidence shows us that they should appear, then the theory of evolution would be disproved. There are other ways of falsifying it too.

Perhaps you're right. I suppose it all depends upon which scientist one prefers to listen to. David Whitten has said: "Biologists are simply naïve when they talk about experiments designed to test the theory of evolution. It is not testable. They may happen to stumble across facts which would seem to conflict with its predictions. These facts will invariably be ignored and their discoverers will undoubtedly be deprived of continuing research grants.' (David Whitten

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[_Dr. Shades]

It is a pity, but all this thread has shown is that I was right about Cog (and several others) all along. In terms of ever coming to grips with what Mormonism can and cannot be, Coggins is in the "write-off" file, at least for the foreseeable future.

Verdict: Coggins deserves Mormonism, and Mormonism deserves him.

Hey Tal, you really, really, REALLY ought to take a look at this utterly mind-blowing quote made by Coggins7. It's in his opening paragraph right after the quoted material:

http://mormondiscussions.com/discuss/vi ... 688#133688