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Verification Principle (Ideas)

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'The Verification Principle offers no real challenge to religious belief.' Discuss [35]
The Verification principle was formed by the Vienna Circle, a group of philosophers (logical positivists) who approached the problem of religious language with Verificationism and the verification principle. The Vienna Circle believed that meaningful statements are either analytical or synthetic. Analytical statements are true by definition, for example, 2+2=4 or a square has 4 sides. On the other hand, synthetic statements require verification to prove whether they're true or not, for example, if somebody says it is a cloudy day, you would have to look out your window to see that it is cloudy.
An issue with the verification principle is that we make statements based on unverifiable opinion all the time. This means important ethical statements are regarded as meaningless as well. This means that it argues that the laws of science and historic statements are also meaningless as they too cannot be truly verifiable. The verification principle offers a challenge to belief because when we speak of God we need to be cautious because some may argue that we could portray god as anthropomorphic. The Verification Principle can also be seen as a challenge for religion because the verification principle states that something must be proven to be true or false (i.e. verifiable or falsifiable) for it to be meaningful. An atheist would argue that religions lack empirical evidence which is required to prove the existence of a God. Ayer's doubted the existence of a God due to this lack of evidence. This means that God cannot be verified, meaning religion is meaningless. For example, the Verification Principle would argue that phrases such as "prayer is wonderful" are meaningless as it cannot be verified. For a catholic, prayer can be a great experience. However, for an atheist, prayer would be seen as pointless. Other phrases such as "my car is black" can be verified, meaning this is a meaningful statement.

strong - verifiable conclusively by observing experience weak - shown to be probable through observation and experience

In Ayer's second edition, he rejects the use of 'putative statements' and changes his definition of the principle of verification to: ' A statement is held to be literally meaningful if and only if it is either analytic or empirically verifiable' (Language, Truth and Logic). He changed it because he concluded that his distinction between weak and strong verifications could not apply to any statement, and Ayer came to the conclusion that some statements can be conclusively verified. He also rejects his earlier definition of weak verification

The Vienna Circle concluded that religious statements and experiences were meaningless as they could not be supported by empirical evidence and can never be truly proven. Ayer believed that talk about God in general was meaningless as it can never be verified.

Strengths * Saves wasted time discussing God * We often regard verification and falsification as ways of distinguishing between sense and nonsense * Supports the design argument for God’s existence because it is based on a posteriori evidence * Supports the claim of an afterlife and religious experience
Weaknesses
* There is no empirical evidence to support the verification principle - doesn’t meet its own criteria * There are many terms that are metaphysical (such as love and beauty) which do have meaning for the users and the effects of these metaphysical terms can be seen through one’s actions (empirically) * Vardy argues that the fact that you can’t verify it doesn’t mean that it is meaningless * It is not consistent with modern science as many scientific statements such as atoms or forces are not verifiable * Historical Statements cannot be empirically verified and are therefore rendered meaningless under the strong verification principle * Keith Ward reasoned that God’s existence can, in principle, be verified since God himself can verify his own existence * If you apply the weak verification principle then you can justify anything

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