Although I really have no idea of everything you envision when you use the phrase, I’ll take a risk – no – “The Christian God Hypothesis” is not falsifiable.

I asked in response to your rhetorical question “… shouldn’t hypotheses be falsifiable? Don’t hypotheses increase in strength and usefulness to the extent to which they do so?”, on the basis that Christians find the hypothesis compelling, lack of falsifiability notwithstanding. Clearly, such is not an important discriminant for them.

Yes, I meant DD’s “GH.”

DD quoted you as saying “Your UH differs very, very significantly from your GH. Think about the GH for a moment – my intense distaste for it aside – its depth of scope and definition at least theoretically allows for a decent subset of nuanced consequences in more than one area of reality – you have lists of things we’d expect to see in several different areas of reality were the subject of your GH to exist in actuality. ”

The differences you stated above are precisely what I mean when I stated that you feel the GH is a totally different kind of animal than the UH. Your position is that the two are qualitatively different in terms of the “subset of nuanced consequences” that the GH contains as opposed to the UH.

As for unjustifiable quibbling… I can certainly think of a more polite way to analogize what DD is talking about here, but I think the analogy itself, when used solely for establishing a point that you and DD apparently agree on, doesn’t strike me as particularly unsound or off base.

Again, that’s assuming the analogy is only being used to establish the point that the consistency of two competing hypotheses with the facts presented is an insufficient basis for claiming that the hypotheses have equal merit.

My assertion was essentially that you don’t believe that’s the SOLE purpose of the analogy, and I think your characterization of it as a rhetorical device may back me up here. If you object to it as a RHETORICAL device, then it doesn’t seem to me that you are asserting that the analogy is logically flawed or somehow insufficient for the purpose DD purports to have introduced it.

DD, for his part, seems to think you are addressing the rhetorical aspects of his analogy as an attempt to make the analogy seem inadequate to establish the point he was trying to make (which, if I’m reading all of this stuff correctly you guys seem to agree on).

And oh! I’d forgotten all about that Relative Popularity Argument of yours. “God’s evidentiary advantages over ULFSM justify believers in leaving the NULL position.” Powerful stuff.

PS What does “on his nuts” mean? I don’t live in a hip skateboarding town. Oh, and what’s “butthurt”?

Hunt,

Denying DD’s positive claims does not entail that I need to put forth my own. The question is whether or not DD’s Evidence Against Christianity is cogent and I’ve built a pretty good case that it is not. Although folks are reluctant to admit it, DD is on the ropes in that regard. Also, if you haven’t noticed, I’ve been wearing a bulls-eye around here for months. Incidentally, you seem cool and reasonable to me. If you sincerely want to know why I believe what I believe, spend time on my blog. This thread isn’t the place for that.

John Morales,

I felt I was within reason to note your objection and wasn’t necessarily claiming you thought the AH/UH was 100% bunk. I know what the UH states. Although I really have no idea of everything you envision when you use the phrase, I’ll take a risk – no – “The Christian God Hypothesis” is not falsifiable.

Lifeguard,

Sounds to me like Cl agrees with DD’s broader point that consistency with the facts, taken alone, is insufficient to justify accepting a hypothesis (although, strictly speaking, one doesn’t “accept” a hypothesis, but tests it), but he doesn’t quite like the Unicorn Hypothesis, since he feels the God Hypothesis is a qualitatively different animal.

I always did agree that there is more to justification than just consistency with facts. That’s a fools argument. I challenge your assertion of why I dislike the UH. It’s not because I feel it’s a different animal than the God Hypothesis – and by “God Hypothesis,” do you mean DD’s GH?

If it’s JUST about whether or not consistency with the evidence standing alone is sufficient to justify a hypothesis, then I agree that Cl is unjustifiably quibbling a bit, although, if that’s the case, it’s likely because he may feel that the Unicorn Hypothesis is being subtley set up to serve as a kind of straw man doppleganger for the God Hypothesis.

Of course it is. That’s what ULFSM arguments are – rhetorical devices to make believers look silly. They work damn well, too, because most people don’t really think things through.

Still, I’m curious why you say “If it’s JUST about whether or not consistency with the evidence standing alone is sufficient to justify a hypothesis, then I agree that Cl is unjustifiably quibbling a bit.” How so?

Arthur,

Why miss an opportunity to be insulting, when you can combine it with a cute little dance around what your actual point is?

How many more times do you think I should repeat myself? Echoes are not arguments. I can’t help it if people can’t or won’t see where DD’s badly gone wrong. I’ve pointed it out several times.

…let’s see if anyone else picks up on it, although I doubt they will, because many people who comment here are too on your nuts to see clearly.

Why miss an opportunity to be insulting, when you can combine it with a cute little dance around what your actual point is?

So the real question is, what is the original post about?

If it’s JUST about whether or not consistency with the evidence standing alone is sufficient to justify a hypothesis, then I agree that Cl is unjustifiably quibbling a bit, although, if that’s the case, it’s likely because he may feel that the Unicorn Hypothesis is being subtley set up to serve as a kind of straw man doppleganger for the God Hypothesis.

So maybe the real question here is what else does the God Hypothesis offer beyond mere consistency with the evidence?

cl, please remember I tend to be somewhat literal.
I consider both that “the AH/UH as currently defined holds nowhere near the predictive powers of the MH/GH [cl]” and that the AH/UH well illustrates “whether we are “justified” in reaching conclusions whose sole virtue is that they have been contrived to “predict” the exact same consequences as some other hypothesis. [DD]“. I have not changed my mind on either.

Please remember what the UH states: that the Unicorns are “using their magical powers to “fix” the visible, verifiable evidence to be perfectly consistent with the consequences that would result from the non-existence of unicorns.” Not surprisingly (to me, anyway), this is quite similar to a hypothesis stated by some theists, known as the Omphalos hypothesis .

Next,

[cl] … shouldn’t hypotheses be falsifiable? Don’t hypotheses increase in strength and usefulness to the extent to which they do so?

Well, sort of.
Falsifiability is important (though only necessary for scientific hypotheses*), but predictive power, scope of application etc. are important discriminants.

BTW, cl, how is the Christian god-hypothesis falsifiable? Or do you not consider its existence and putative effects on the world as a hypothesis, but instead as a presupposition?

–
* e.g. in a social science context, for example, some hypotheses may not be falsifiable; yet a ranking system between multiple social behaviour hypotheses can still be empirically established. But this is a digression.

Come on cl, it’s time for you to put out a positive argument instead of sitting on the sideline taking pot shots. It’s scary out on the field because you will suddenly find yourself wearing a bull’s-eye.

..perhaps you should let John speak for himself as to whether or not the Unicorn Overlords post achieves the goal of demonstrating the point it was intended to make.

My comment was sufficiently prefaced with: “I don’t know if John’s changed his mind since…”

Your disclaimer was not sufficient to account for the discrepancy between the topic John actually addressed (“does the UH have predictive powers similar to the GH?”) and the topic you used his comment to rebut (“does the UH demonstrate that it’s not enough just to be consistent with the evidence?”).

Indeed. I want to know the truth, and this is just another reason I’m not an atheist.

I have documented the real-world facts that any reasonable person can verify for themselves and that demonstrate that reality is more consistent with the Myth Hypothesis than with the Gospel Hypothesis. This constitutes a reasonable basis for rejecting the truth claims of Christianity.

What have you found in the real world that would reasonably justify deciding against atheism?

Sure – if we start with the assumption that unicorn overlords are silly to believe in, or that they require extraordinary evidence – but what do you think a computer would say, and why?

Why would we need to assume that the Unicorn Hypothesis is silly in order to reach the conclusion that it is silly? Didn’t you say you agreed that our conclusions are only rational if we arrive at them rationally? Doesn’t it fall short of being a rational conclusion because it fails to achieve anything more than a Loser’s Compromise? Wouldn’t it be irrational to say that we have to assume our conclusion in order to reach it?

In science, unfalsifiable hypotheses refute themselves.

That is a general principle that applies to all hypotheses and not just to the Unicorn Hypothesis, correct?

DD,

So it seems to me that you do agree that our beliefs are not actually justified just by being consistent with the facts, correct? (emph. mine)

Of course. I’ve never argued otherwise. Whether or not they are consistent with the facts, our beliefs are rationally justified if and only if we’ve arrived at them rationally.

In other words, even though the Unicorn Hypothesis achieves the goal of predicting the same set of consequences as the Autonomy Hypothesis, the vast body of evidence which is consistent with the Unicorn Hypothesis fails even provisionally to justify belief in unicorn overlords, correct?

Sure – if we start with the assumption that unicorn overlords are silly to believe in, or that they require extraordinary evidence – but what do you think a computer would say, and why?

After all, you are attempting to refute my example by appealing to general principles that ought to apply to all hypotheses, and not just to the specific case of the Unicorn Hypothesis, correct?

In science, unfalsifiable hypotheses refute themselves.

..perhaps you should let John speak for himself as to whether or not the Unicorn Overlords post achieves the goal of demonstrating the point it was intended to make.

My comment was sufficiently prefaced with: “I don’t know if John’s changed his mind since…”

So it seems to me that you do agree that our beliefs are not actually justified just by being consistent with the facts, correct? In other words, even though the Unicorn Hypothesis achieves the goal of predicting the same set of consequences as the Autonomy Hypothesis, the vast body of evidence which is consistent with the Unicorn Hypothesis fails even provisionally to justify belief in unicorn overlords, correct? And that’s a principle that’s generally applicable to a wide range of hypotheses that “justify” someone’s beliefs merely by managing to be consistent with the evidence, correct?

After all, you are attempting to refute my example by appealing to general principles that ought to apply to all hypotheses, and not just to the specific case of the Unicorn Hypothesis, correct? That means that the requirements that the UH fails to satisfy are general requirements, right?

So in other words, in order for belief in the Christian God to be justified, we need a hypothesis that supplies all the elements that the Unicorn Hypothesis is lacking, right?

Whether an hypothesis is religious or not has no bearing on its requirements.

I think that you’re on to something there! Or are you exempting religious hypotheses?

I think we did that rather well, but one commenter disagrees.

Did you mean to say, at least one commenter disagrees?

Regardless, the AH/UH as currently defined holds nowhere near the predictive powers of the MH/GH. Agree or disagree? (cl)

Agree. (John Morales)

I don’t know if John’s changed his mind since, but I certainly wasn’t the only commenter who thought your AH/UH missed the mark. The UH is not even falsifiable.

It’s a classic example of misdirection and dodging the issue, so I thought it would be worth a bit of attention.

It wasn’t misdirection or dodging the issue. It was my honest response to your post.

..there’s no rule that says a valid hypothesis has to make more than one prediction.

Of course not – but shouldn’t hypotheses be falsifiable? Don’t hypotheses increase in strength and usefulness to the extent to which they do so? Then by this criteria – as I pointed out and John Morales agreed – aren’t the GH and the MH much stronger and more useful than the AH/UH?

But the real genius of this argument is the way it opens up whole new cans of worms for us to argue about, like whether or not the Unicorn Hypothesis is really similar enough to the Gospel Hypothesis to make this example applicable.

I disagree that there’s any “genius” to this argument, and I didn’t think the AH/UH was similar enough to make the example applicable. Also, I didn’t call the AH/UH silly because I “can’t beat it,” I called it silly because like the larger discussion over the GH/MH, it proves nothing. I wish you would honestly consider the option that perhaps your entire series to date is little more than an rhetorical exercise that proves nothing, as anyone can knock down a God of their own making. OTOH, if garnering further support from atheists and skeptics is the goal, then you’re doing just fine.

And that, I think, was at least the subconscious goal of the tactic of “agreeing” while simultaneously trying to make it sound like he was disproving my point.

I didn’t agree because I really think subconsciously that the underlying principle of your argument is cogent. I agreed because – again – much like the larger discussion about the MH/GH – you’ve presented an example that is so extremely caricatured and silly that anybody with half a brain in their head would have to agree.

My point is that rationalization‐the art of convincing ourselves that the evidence is consistent with our beliefs—is not a valid means of justifying what we believe in.

I agree, and I feel no need to “convince myself” that the evidence is consistent with my beliefs.

We can know the truth, but we have to want to know the truth.

Indeed. I want to know the truth, and this is just another reason I’m not an atheist.