Falsification

Remember verification? Well one way to look at it is that falsification is the opposite.

Falsification said that for something to be considered meaningful, there had to be evidence that would go against it. To refute it.

Karl Popper is the thinker credited with coming up with this idea.

He said that if an idea was meaningful, you could know what things would go against it.

Religious statements fall through when it comes to falsification because no evidence can be found to disprove it. How do you know what you are trying to disprove?

Anthony Flew

Anthony Flew's Wisdom Parable of the Gardener was used to show that religious statements cannot be falsified.

The parable tells of two explorers. One believes that a clearing in a jungle is proof of God's existence. The other does not. They set traps and yet nothing happens.

In the end, the one who didn't believe says 'how does an invisible, intangible gardener differ from an imaginary gardener or no gardener at all?'.

Flew said that neither allow anything to go against what they belief. This means that they do not allow for their ideas to be falsified. Therefore, what they think about the supposed gardener is meaningless.

In the same way, Flew said believers do not allow for anything to count against their beliefs. Therefore they are not falsifiable and ultimately, meaningless and 'died a death of a thousand qualifications'.