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The Confirmation of Scientific and Theistic Hypotheses

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

G. Schlesinger
Affiliation:
Professor of Philosophy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Extract

The idea that there might be empirical evidence for the existence of God has been largely discredited these days. Even among theists there are many who hold that it is not a fruitful idea and that there is no point in searching for evidence for theistic beliefs. Some who regard themselves as theists go to the extreme of denying that there is any possibility of there being empirical evidence to support a religious world-view since that view implies no factual claim, as it is essentially a commitment to a given set of values and a way of life and not to the existence of any physically real entity. Others are willing to assert that theism implies the belief in some special facts but that these are so far removed from the mundane experiences upon which physical science is based, that the latter could not possibly support such a belief. Yet others merely say that there is no need at all for confirmatory evidence of the kind employed in science since their beliefs are grounded in something much firmer and more immediate, like religious experience.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1977

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References

page 21 note 1 Schlesinger, G., Confirmation and Confirmability (Oxford, 1974), pp. 2630.Google Scholar

page 25 note 1 Faith and Knowledge (Ithaca: New York, 1957), pp. 150–62.Google Scholar

page 25 note 2 Religion and Rationality, p.137.

page 27 note 1 This argument differs fundamentally from the – fallacious – argument according to which on N, human beings are improbable to evolve given the laws and initial conditions of our universe. No matter how rare such systems as humans represent are, they are certainly possible in our universe, hence given infinite time and space they are bound to exist some time, somewhere.

page 28 note 1 Confirmation and Confismability, pp. 33–40.