Is There Conclusive Proof That Religious Language Is Meaningful?

A. J. Ayer considered all religious language to be meaningless. He came to this terminal through his Verification principle, which argued that a report which can non be support is meaningless. In Ayers own words, A statement is held to be literally meaningful if and only if it is either analytic or empirically verifiable. He says that a religious vocalism may be emotionally significant to the person verbalism it, but it is not literally significant. An example of this would be the statement beau ideal is everywhere. The person saying this may spirit comforted in the knowledge that God is watching everyplace them and their friends and family, but he has no way of proving that an Omnipresent God exists, so in that respect is no useful empirical randomness in the statement. Ayer also pointed out that the statement God exists has as little meaning as the statement God does not exist. There were many challenges to the principle of Verification. John provincial suggested that on that point is meaning in religious statements as in that respect is truth in them which can be verify. He give tongue to that Gods existence can be verified in principle if true, but not falsifiable if false, eschatologically. He explained this with the story of the Celestial City. Two travellers are on a journey down a road.

One traveller believes there is a Celestial City at the end of the road, the formula of which has influence over all good and bad events on their journey, while the other traveller does not believe there is a Celestial City at the end of the road, nor an potent ruler. Whichever one is right at the end of the journey, their views could be verified. In my opinion the damning criticism of the Verification principle is that it cannot be verified. It is not a sound test for meaningfulness if the principle itself cannot be proved meaningful under its own test. Falsification offers a similar approach to religious language, but from a divergent angle. Developed by Karl Popper, it states that an assertion is meaningless... If you want to get a full essay, order it on our website: Orderessay

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