When something is falsifiable, that means it is suitable for examination by science. When something is not falsifiable it should be considered false, in most contexts.

"When something is not falsifiable it should be considered false, in most contexts."

Is the above sentence falsifiable? How do you examine the "should be" question with science?

If it is not falsifiable, should it be considered false, or is it an exception? How do you pick exceptions?

My two assertions about your sentence: (1) It is not falsifiable. (2) You consider it very useful.

Notice I tacked on a weasel phrase "in most contexts." I don't think there is a consensus about falsifiability, and I wasn't the one who brought it up. The person who did seemed to understand it backwards. Since Aristotle and Newton operated without the concept, I'm willing to shelve it.

Grandma going to heaven can be reduced to absurdity, and isn't very important, except as a typical line of bull.

It is falsifiable if you can find a single non falsifiable thing that would be useful / treated as true.

"Life has meaning."

Actually, this doesn't fit here, because "useful" implies "for a goal", and if there's no ultimate goal to life, then nothing is useful. So "life has meaning" is just another example of something that is only useful if true. Ah, well.

"Grandma went to heaven" is a statement of fact about a very specific matter that is either true or false.

The person uttering it has not seen, heard, smelled, or touched a single piece of evidence to verify this supposed fact.

Indeed, they're saying it either because they're sincerely repeating a myth they've heard since they were credulous children, because they want to mollify a grieving child's anguish, or both.

If you make a claim about the physical location of a human being, yet you have absolutely no evidence to bolster your claim, then you're making a claim that is not falsifiable and should be considered false.

I've always felt that that was an article of faith.

Ultimately, nothing is falsifiable because you have to make certain assumptions just to function.To truly throw out all assumptions would be to embrace solipsism. All that are left are various arbitrary criteria for belief.

Sure it is. Unless you define heaven or other claims of paranormal phenomena so trivially ("that which cannot be perceived and has no effect") of course it can be falsified. If the soul is a thing, and heaven a place for it, then of course you can verify whether or not that thing is in that place.

We may not yet have built the instrument that can detect souls, or engineered the successor beings that can perceive heaven, or been visited by the magician whose wand can open the door to it, but those are mere practical and technological considerations, not propositional ones.

Religion can, and has, made many falsifiable claims (and they have all been falsified, when put to the test). The ones we haven't got around to yet are no different. From a scientific perspective there's no inherent difference between paranormal claims made in the context of a centuries-old religion and those made in the context of a psychic snake oil salesman.

The separation between "matters of faith" and "matters of science" is itself a lie we tell ourselves and each other so we can tolerate living in a world populated by irrational people and irrational beliefs. But it's artifice, there's no reason any actual phenomenon can't be investigated "scientifically."

"Grandma went to heaven" may be a kind of lie, it depends on the context.

If a priest says to me (a 36 yo adult) that "Grandma went to heaven" it clearly is not a lie. I know that the priest is speaking from faith, and I am able to evaluate the truthfulness of his statement in context. In this case, it's implied that the statement means "I have deep religious faith that grandma is in heaven." This doesn't need to be spelled out.

However, if a priest says this to a small child, it becomes a kind of lie unless the priest explains the difference between faith and fact. If Itell my son that "France is in Europe, catepillars become butterflies, and Grandma went to heaven", I have pretty much lied to my kid, even if I deeply believe that all statements are true.

Welcome to the mirror world, where a lie isn't a lie if you put the word "faith" in front of it! Is this kinda like "Simon Says"? Up is down -- oops, matter of faith, so I'm okay! Burning heretics is good for the human race -- oh, wait, I actually mean that one. Sorry, Galileo...

"Let those of us who believe in the resurrection of Jesus, the coming of the semantic web, or other supernatural phenomena believe what we want to believe."

Bruce, you can't stay stuff like that while I'm at work - I've got people around me who can hear me laughing!

All I have at work is a parrot. And the parrot is now cackling with laughter.

Ah the semantic web, as it was for told in the Book of Revelations.

You must be using one of those new-fangled translations.

Tell me, how many Gospels do you have? if there's more than one, we have a problem.

;p

I guess that makes me a modern theologian when I say that the semantic web is already here, it's just not as impressive and dramatic as people seem to expect it to be.