Prove Me Wrong

I have always taken it for granted that religion avoids making falsifiable claims. A falsifiable claim is one which, if it is wrong, can be proven wrong. For instance, if I say there are invisible pink unicorns gallivanting around my bedroom, that would be an unfalifiable claim. There is no way to prove me wrong.

Contrast that with a claim that, say, blue whales are the largest living creatures on Earth. All you have to do to prove me wrong is show me a bigger animal. (Interestingly, there are bigger organisms out there. There's a single fungus in Oregon, for example, that is 3.5 miles across. Is it not wonderful, children?)

In the great Science vs Religion kumite, science makes plenty of falsifiable claims. To quote Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist with a brilliant mind and the smile of a psychopathic pedophile: "If there were a single hippo or rabbit in the Precambrian, that would completely blow evolution out of the water. None have ever been found."

I've always thought that religion shied away from making really falsifiable claims for the most part, preferring instead to stick to vague statements about the nature of the Universe and Man. I have had a quick glance at documentary hypothesis in the past, and do intend to delve into it deeper in the future, but assertions like "the Bible seems to be written by four authors with distinct writing styles" are hardly knockouts.

"Letter to my Rabbi" by Naftali Zeligman has really opened my eyes to a new line of inquiry. In it, he addresses and discusses Biblical and Talmudic statements with falsifiability, like "the four animals listed in the Torah as each having a single sign of purity . . . are the only animals in the world with only one sign of purity"[Chulin 59a] and "All countries came into Egypt to Joseph to buy corn, for the famine was sore in all lands." [Genesis 41:57].

He does a thoroughly sterling job, and I highly recommend reading his piece: http://www.talkreason.org/articles/letter1.cfm