Religious Language Part 1
- Created by: _bella_
- Created on: 01-02-19 14:00
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- Religious Lang. Part 1
- Strength + Weak Verification Principle
- Proposed by Ayer
- Strong- occurs when there is no way a statement is false, such as 'The Pope is Catholic'
- Weak- occurs when there isn't complete certainty it is true, but strong certainty is is true to evidence 'Ted Bundy killed over 30 women'
- Criticism of Verification Principle
- It makes meaningless statements seem unmeaningful, despite that not being it
- Can be proven as, as a theory it cannot be proven
- Statements which express unverifiable/ emotions are seen as meaningless despite being used in all forms of soc.
- Ethical/ Moral statements are seen as meaningless, such as "I love you"
- Laws of science can't be proven true
- Historical statements can't be proven as people who experienced it are dead
- Verification Principle
- Used by Logical Positivists
- For statements to be seen as meaningful it should be proved empirically
- Ayer- Existence of God can't be rationally proven, statements about God can't be proven/ falsified, thus they aren't valid
- Analytical Statements- True by def. (a Priori) , such as ' a spinster is an unmarried woman'
- Mathematical Statements-Ayer saw inconsistencies in maths as products of human error instead of difference in facts. If 5+5=9 one would recalculate to find error
- Synthetic Statement- statements can be verified/ falsified, they are a posteriori statements which are proven empirically
- Falsification Principle
- Hick: In order to say something which may possibly be true, we must say something which may be possible
- Proposed by Karl Popper
- For something to be scientific it should be proven false
- Alternatives to Falsification Princple
- R.M Hare- blik 'ways of regarding the world which are in principle neither verifiable or falsifiable'
- Basil Mitchell- Parable of the Partisan and the Stranger: religious believers accept beliefs will be challenged but make up explanations which suit them
- The Via Negativa
- We can't describe God in factual terms because it reduces his divinity to a human level
- Language is dynamic and makes speaking of God more problematic
- Suggests the truth about God can be speaking about him in a negative way
- Used Dionysius to find out what God was like by finding out how He isn't
- Principle of negation
- Strength + Weak Verification Principle
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