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Re:Skull of Homo erectus throws story of human evolution int... by pbhjpbhj on Thursday October 17, 2013 @06:33PM (#6568619)
>>"God exists" and "God does not exists" are not in the class of claims subject to empirical investigation.

That depends very much on your definition of God and on whether you require the empiricism to be [universally] objective or, for example, would consider that a personal experience of your own with God to be evidence on which to base your own belief.

>>Creationism does not make any falsifiable predictions.

Again that depends entirely on the definition of Creationism.

As an aside I find it interesting to speculate as to what might become falsifiable [to some extent or other] in the future. Imagine we make contact with an alien race and they have photos of the Earth showing it was/wasn't ever in any significant flood in the region of the Eastern Mediterranean.

Re:Skull of Homo erectus throws story of human evolution int... by dragonwriter on Thursday October 17, 2013 @07:38PM (#6568891)
> That depends very much on your definition of God

Well, sure, but for any of the usual definitions, the point (with the note below) holds.

> on whether you require the empiricism to be [universally] objective or, for example, would consider that a personal experience of your own with God to be evidence on which to base your own belief.

True, I should have referred to scientific empiricism which includes objectivity (for which "universally" is superfluous).

> Again that depends entirely on the definition of Creationism.

Yes, any claim depends on the definition of the words used in it. Creationism, however, like God, has a fairly well-established meaning for which the statement holds (with the note above.)

> As an aside I find it interesting to speculate as to what might become falsifiable [to some extent or other] in the future. Imagine we make contact with an alien race and they have photos of the Earth showing it was/wasn't ever in any significant flood in the region of the Eastern Mediterranean.

1. We know of significant floods near the region of the Eastern Mediterranean, 2. In terms of Biblical literalism, the claim is of a global flood, not a flood in the region of the Eastern Mediterranean, 3. I will note again that any evidence can be rationalized in the context of an interpretive framework that includes an all-powerful supernatural being (of course, "Aliens have an equivalent of Photoshop" doesn't even require invoking an all-powerful or supernatural being.)