PHILOSOPHICAL LANGUAGE & THOUGHT
A statement is held to be meaningful if and only if it is analytically or empirically verifiable - A.J. Ayer
YES
The Verification Principle exposes "God-talk" for the waste of time that it is. Unverifiable statements can never be proven true or false, so why bother arguing? We can dispense with the Cosmological Argument and move on to more important topics.
The Verification Principle allows us to observe that the universe is exists and that there are causes-and-effects we can study scientifically. Isn't this enough? By bringing in a metaphysical being like God, you aren't in fact adding anything to your explanation of the universe. As Richard Dawkins says: "God is not a good explanation."
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NO
If belief in God is meaningless, then disbelief in God is meaningless too. The Verification Principle leaves the problem where it was before but by giving up on the Cosmological Argument you are in fact siding with non-believers. This shows Ayer's atheist bias.
The Verification Principle causes problems for scientists too, because a lot of scientific ideas can't be verified. We can't see sub-atomic particles or black holes in space; we can't see evolution either. But if we weaken the Verification Principle to allow things we can't see, then God stops being meaningless and the Cosmological Argument becomes worth arguing about.
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