Critically Assess the Claim That the Religious Believer Dies a Death of a Thousand Qualifications

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“Critically Assess the Claim That the Religious Believer Dies a Death of a Thousand Qualifications”

The claim that “the religious believer dies the death of a thousand qualifications” is one made by British Philosopher Anthony Flew. The meaning behind this statement is essentially that through constant qualification and amendment of the claim “God’s exists”, by religious believers, it ultimately becomes meaningless because there is no way to falsify it. Flew illustrates his view by making use of John Wisdom’s parable of the gardener. He uses this parable and adapts it, to make an attack on the meaningfulness of religious language.

In Flew’s adaption of the parable, two people spend some days in a garden. Unlike in Wisdom’s version of the parable, Flew’s sceptic (who doesn’t see any evidence of a gardener) views the claim that there is a gardener as a hypothesis that needs to be tested. Since they don’t see the gardener visiting the garden, the sceptic reckons there probably isn’t a gardener. However, his companion suggests that the gardener must come at night instead. So the two of the stay up all night keeping watch, however no gardener is spotted. Again the sceptic takes this as proof there isn’t a gardener. However, the believer then suggests that the gardener must be invisible. So then put up an electric fence, and also guard it with sniffer dogs, but still no evidence was found of a gardener sneaking in a tending to the land. Yet the believer continues to believe that there is a gardener, but now he claims that not only is the gardener invisible, but is also intangible and odourless. The sceptic eventually gives up and asks the believer how the claim that there is an “intangible, odourless, gardener’, differs from the claim that there is ‘no’ gardener at all. Regardless of any evidence shown to the believer, against the gardener, the believer maintains their belief. Each time the gardener isn’t found, the believer simply modifies their belief so that it isn’t falsifiable.

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Flew is essentially arguing that a statement such as ‘there is a gardener’ can only be meaningful if it is a genuine claim about the world. However, it can only be a genuine claim, if the person producing the statement can consider it being wrong, or to put it simply, falsified. Someone who refuses to renounce their faith, no matter what is discovered about the world, is not talking about the world at all. When shown evidence that their statement isn’t true, they add to or and qualify it so that the new evidence no longer rebuts it. An example ...

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