Karl Popper, how did he falsify Religion???

[lootmaker]

How did the philospher Karl popper falsify religion?

[Sludge]

He argued that historicism is founded upon mistaken assumptions regarding the nature of scientific law and prediction. Since the growth of human knowledge is a causal factor in the evolution of human history, and since "no society can predict, scientifically, its own future states of knowledge", it follows that there can be no predictive science of human history. Metaphysical and historical indeterminism go hand in hand. Among his contributions to philosophy is his answer to David Hume's Problem of Induction. Hume stated that just because the sun has risen every day for as long as anyone can remember, there is no rational reason to believe that it will come up tomorrow. There is no rational way to prove that a pattern will continue on " just because it has before". Popper's reply is characteristic, and tied in with his criterion of falsifiability. He stated that whilst there is no way to prove that the sun will come up, we can theorise that it will. If it doesn't come up, then the theory will be disproven, but since at this moment it seems to arrive consistently with the theory, the theory is not disproven. Thus Popper's demarcation between science and non-science falsified religion..

[Peter Pedant]

I am always fascinated by sludge's contributions.

BUT....

Popper said (I think) that to be a scientific hypothesis the statement has to be falsifiable,

that is one is able to construct an experiment that will show it is false, if it is false.

Thus the statment there is a tiger behind the door is falsiable by the expt of opening the door and looking.

if however one says, no no the tiger being intelligner heard you coming, and has run behind the sofa, then one can see, with a little imagination that the statmeent is not falsifiable......

Having said that, I have only read Popper on scientific induction - see above for smudges v clear exposition on poppers way round hume's refutation of baconian induction (!!)

and i cant recollect reading anythiing by popper on religtion.

[Peter Pedant]

I am always fascinated by sludge's contributions.

BUT....

Popper said (I think) that to be a scientific hypothesis the statement has to be falsifiable,

that is one is able to construct an experiment that will show it is false, if it is false.

Thus the statment there is a tiger behind the door is falsiable by the expt of opening the door and looking.

if however one says, no no the tiger being intelligner heard you coming, and has run behind the sofa, then one can see, with a little imagination that the statmeent is not falsifiable......

Having said that, I have only read Popper on scientific induction - see above for smudges v clear exposition on poppers way round hume's refutation of baconian induction (!!)

and i cant recollect reading anythiing by popper on religtion.