Great religious falsehoods

How would you test some'thing' that operates in a way that is unpredictable, unrepeatable, empirically untestable, etc?

The computer codes output is inherently predictable - it justs takes you time to figure that out. That's different to something which is inherently unpredictable. It would seem that the less machine like and more own willed something is, the less predictable it is.Then there is the empirically non-testable. A thought is a thing but cannot be tested for empirically. You can only take my word for it that I thought what I thought 2 seconds ago.- Fair enough. A day might come when something like thoughts are rendered visible to others (perish the still-invisible thought). But to suppose that that must be the case, that everything is testable in principle is to engage in mere speculation.It might well be that at the end of the pursuit of knowledge there lies only mystery.- I agree. One of the bolts Science cannot undo is the bolt to which it's wrench won't fit. This is not to say that the bolt doesn't exist or that it doesn't function perfectly well as a bolt. It's just says that Science is limited to Science-sized bolts. Which is problematic for this: No evidence acceptable to Science you can only mean.

Absolutely not. But just because someone self-identifies with the Christian faith doesn't mean they are a Christian as defined by God. You might glean some evidence of this from the fact that Ireland self-identifies with the Christian faith to the tune of 90% or so. Of the 20,000 people living in the town where I go to church, perhaps 500 people in total attend church.People don the Christian faith thus due to parentage and tradition. But God has no grandchildren.So, you'd first have to figure out a way to test for a God-defined Christian so as to discern faith from 'faith'. That would be extremely problematic.

Fair enough. The point you choose to respond to was this You then go on to request, in so many words, that I present evidence acceptable to Science.

quote:

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State an effect you have seen and state what you think caused the effect, the originating agent. Then provide your statement of evidence showing that the agent was indeed the cause of the effect.

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This isn't responding to the point. It's sidestepping a conclusion that places boundaries on the extent of reach of your OP's statement.

The pertinant point is how do you know? You're suggesting it's possible to study Christian faith scientifically but if you don't know what Christian faith actually is (or are assuming, for example, that self-identification renders a person Christian) then you aren't all that far down the track.It is possible to study what you define to be Christian faith. That's a completely different matter though.- On the iano faith. But is it Christian faith or just some Christian Religion that iano has going? There are plenty about ..- I dunno. Religious adherance (call it: false god) and Christian faith (call it: true God) are so intertwined I find it hard to imagine how they could be separated, - in order that they be examined.

A couple of flies in the ointment.If prayer is seen as conversation with God and something that can only occur once relationship with God is established, you then have the problem of establishing who has / has not that relationship with God in order to include / exclude them from your sample group.If God has no intention of having himself empirically evidenced then it can be expected that any prayer experiment will fail to evidence God due to Gods inactivity. See above points.

Indeed. I would go so far as saying that it would be impossible to do - unless God desires that he be evidenced in this way. Every material explanation available is but a partial explanation - meaning that there is no material explanation for anything. To suppose yourself to have evidenced a lack of puppet master just because you've figured out that it's the string attached to the puppets hand which makes the hand move as it does - is to suppose incompletely.Every material explanation feathers out into mystery. To point to that fact doesn't diminish God anymore than strings leading into mystery diminish the puppet master. I think certainly yes to the first question and see no impediment given the means at God's disposal. But I don't see why his doing so need be traceable (by classically empirical means) so the answer to your second question would be not necessarily. Given good reasons for his not being so traceable, my own personal opinion is he has made sure he cannot be found empirically

I'm not sure that he'd have to go out of his way to do so. He would know which way he was going to go long 'before' anyone got around to figuring to run a prayer experiment.I don't think there's much point in trying to form a caricature of how God operates based on a time-based existance. If you're missing out on wholesale dimension(s) available to him and inconceivable to you, caricature is all you can assume yourself to be doing.But as far as your question: why would he 'hide'? goes. The answer is fairly straightforward to my mind. If he made himself empirically available then you would have to believe in his existance. And if he doesn't want that you have to believe in his existance then he must 'hide' his existance from you in that way.