Proof A=A

[tavarish]

Though I do understand and agree with your point, to make the definition of God "being outside of anything testable", even methods we haven't devised yet, is utterly dishonest and at best a ploy to dodge internal inconsistencies and discount any empirical evidence that points to the contrary. The sheer fact that people who claim that God is outside testable claims, usually then go on to name his attributes and maintain that he can manifest in the physical world (and that he has done so in the past), means that he is testable (at least subjectively) and has a certain amount of verifiability, if only through means of faith. They assign attributes to this God, give him a nature, speak at length about what his intentions are, but then say he is untestable.

That is simply stupid and a pretty blatant cop-out. I'm talking mostly about the theists who do this very thing.

You're absolutely right and I absolutely agree. This is why I don't see an untestable God as being plausible in any sense, and don't believe such a God could ever have any influence on anything in the known universe past the point of creation. Alas, the non-testable God tends to be the one that people go by. A cop-out indeed.

Also, how do you accept that this definition of God is correct?

I don't particularly accept any definiton of God as being more correct than any other. To me, none of them make sense. I believe the "God is untestable" version to be mainstream enough for it to be my default, regardless of the sense it makes (or doesn't in this case). If somebody wants to offer up a different definition though, I'll play ball on their field instead. The reason I made the comment on your post to Adrian was just to say that as I understand it, theists will always say that God is outside of the testable realm and as such define God as untestable, no matter the advancements in science. Because of this, your idea that God will one day be testable falls flat by the very (albeit ridiculous) definition of God. This doesn't even address the limitations of science which you and Adrian are currently debating.

I think me and Adrian got off on the wrong foot, and I probably should have worded some things a bit better and explained myself with more detail.

I've been on Christianity.com enough that I understand that "God" has many definitions, and most of them are in the realm of being testable, as the claims have to do with physical manifestations, historicity and unexplained events occurring in reality. Most Christian definitions of God can be thoroughly disproven. I can say, without the shadow of a doubt, that the Christian God of the bible does not exist. The purely unobservable and untestable claim that encompasses fr0d0's definition is a cop-out, since BY DEFINITION it assumes things we have yet to know in terms of scientific study. This is not a traditional or particularly popular Christian definition, especially not one of an evangelical that is based on a sola scriptura view.

The fact that fr0d0 just happens to latch on Christian ideology to his impossible definition doesn't make it any more valid or any less of a cop out. It's also in the same realm as the IPU or celestial teapot.

What I'm trying to conclude is that something outside the realm of Christianity; an objective definition of God. Based on current and past trends, I don't think it would have anything to do with being "unobservable" and "untestable", if such a definition was at all possible.

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I do agree that I'm guilty of straw manning a bit. I also completely understand that your definition of God is at its essence, something that is not observable. However, how do you know that this definition is the correct assessment?

God is defined differently by many societies, regions, and religions. Not one of the dictionary definitions I looked up had any mention of being unobservable and untestable by nature.

It doesn't matter if my definition is correct, I already addressed that. My contention was that using my definition, you cannot use science to determine the existence of that God. If you have a God that is observable and testable, then evidently there may be ways of determining whether it exists through science, but it still wouldn't say anything about the other definition.

So yes, to put it this way, if we had two definitions of God:

1) A being that created the universe and resides in the non-temporal realm.
2) A being that created the universe.

The 1st definition is a more strict definition of a God, and this definition defies scientific evaluation. The 2nd definition however is open to interpretation, and science could be used to evaluate it as an existence claim. If the 2nd claim is found to be true or false by science, it still says nothing about the 1st claim unless something in the 2nd claim contradicted the 1st. Nothing does in my example (they both have a claim to have created the universe, but nothing prohibits them from doing that together, etc).

Agreed. I've said that in your definition, proof would be impossible. My point was that this definition is impossible and dishonest and makes assumptions about unknown unknowns. Theists can use that as a basis to latch on any motives or beliefs they see fit, and all of it is non-verifiable by default.

I do agree with your 2 points though.