I've been trying to think of a way to make a contribution to your thread since yesterday, and I don't think I can except perhaps to clarify some terms. Only statements about observable reality can be falsified, and then only if they're incorrect. Thus a correct statement about observable reality can be falsifiable in the philosophical sense that one can imagine a physical observation that would invalidate the idea IF IT IS INCORRECT. If it's correct, it's not falsifiable in the non-philosophic sense that it actually can be falsified.
Also, metaphysical speculations are never falsifiable, since they're "not even wrong." Nor anything going on in the mind that isn't a statement about empirical reality such as finding something beautiful or experiencing an urge. The term only applies to ideas about the world out there known by experience.
It seems to me that the abiogenesis hypothesis is unfalsifiable. I can't imagine a discovery that would demonstrate that life cannot emerge spontaneously under the right circumstances. I suspect the related belief that irreducible complexity does not exist in biological systems is unfalsifiable. And yet I believe that both of those ideas are correct. Does that mean I hold unfalsifiable beliefs?
It sounds like it. I think I got four things out of my formal education. First, a fund of knowledge about a variety of topics. Second, preparation for a technical profession. Third, how to think critically. And fourth, how to how to study effectively and to continue learning independently after graduation.
That disparity is evidence that what is being experienced when one claims to experience God is nothing but a vague feeling translated by two cognitive biases into a god belief - first, projection, or what's in here mistakenly be perceived as something out there, and agenticity, or the tendency to ascribe consciousness and intent to natural phenomena.
The question the alert and inquisitive mind asks is whether those people are all seeing something he can't see, or they're not. Is there a test to decide this? Let me share the parable of the color-blind boy.
He's been told all his life that that what he sees as a kind of gray color is actually either of two colors, red or green, and he believes it, until one day he remembers all of the other collective pranks pulled on him like the Santa Claus and Tooth Fairy stories. And then there was that day snipe hunting. So, he wants to test whether people are seeing something he can't see or not. To do this, he buys a few dozen pairs of red socks and green socks, numbers them, and has somebody tell him whether #1 is red or green, #2 next, and so on, until he has a list of sock numbers and alleged colors.
Then, he has several people who claim to see red and green identify the sock colors separately and without prior collaboration. If their answers are the same, he knows they see something not visible to him, and if the answers are all over the place, he knows he's being pranked. Same with this. Tell me what you think you see, Mr. Theist, and I'll tell you whether you are really seeing it or not.
Insinuations of science? Caviling of logic? This is a call to abandon reason and deny the implications of evidence of the senses if either conflicts with a faith-based belief. To the faithful, this is a virtue, a sign of steadfastness and commitment, and he wears this aspect of himself as a badge of honor. The the critical thinker, it's evidence that he's guessing, and since there are orders of magnitude more ways to guess wrong than right, he's probably guessed incorrectly. And he wants the skeptic to relax his standards and join him, since he knows that there is no evidence or sound argument that end, "therefore, God." If this idea is going to take root in a skeptics head, he needs to lower his defenses that have always helped him avoid false beliefs.
And that kind of thinking leads one to humanism, where reason is the virtue and unjustified belief the vice.
This is another statement that doesn't read as positively to the critical thinker as it does to this faith-based thinker. He sees unwavering certitude as a virtue and doubt as the vice. Humanism sees them oppositely. Certitude is a red flag characteristic of unnuanced thought.
