The existence of personal witness of the holy spirit is an an empirically falsifiable fact

"I would like to begin this round by pointing out that my opponent's ground rules did not include the definition for empirical evidence that he linked to in round 2." That is a fairly strong assertion, note the reference in the above is actually devoted specifically to defining what it means to be empirical. A direct quote : "I often formulated my problem as one of distinguishing between a genuinely empirical method and a non-empirical or even pseudo-empirical method — that is to say, a method which, although it appeals to observation and experiment, nevertheless does not come up to scientific standards." In short, Popper extended empiricism to be that which is falsifiable, he was not content to have simply observation or experiment but demanded falsifiability be implicit. For Popper it was like saying tuna fish, obviously tuna is a fish, you don't need to say tuna fish as you can not buy tuna chicken (unless you are Jessica Simpson[1]). So empirical evidence to Popper was that which is observed and is falsifiable. But Popper's view was (and still is) challenged and thus we speak of empirical falsification and not simply falsification or empirical evidence. We still have to note it explicitly (especially if we are actually talking to Jessica Simpson). "The experiment that I would conduct in this case would be to consult a valid and respected reference guide that lists historical baseball statistics." If someone could observe through the senses the data needed to verify the claim then it would be considered to be empirically verified indeed. Since the specific claim is one what can be verified through sight this satisifes the definition of empirical and thus a well kept record of these visual observations which are verified by many capable observers would indeed be empirical evidence. "Thus his personal experience would be an empirical observation of the experience and he would either be certain it was real (true) or not certain (false)." From Pro's own reference : "Derived from naturalistic observation or from experimental procedures." Pro has to thus show what natural observation can be used to verify the claim and be very specific that the claim happened and not something else. Note of course terms like metric are not required for trivial visual observations (home run) as the metric is obvious. These terms only come into use when the claim gets non-trivial and it has to be defined what is being sensed and how exactly can we measure that to ensure that is actually the thing being claimed and not something else. Note still, that the resolution is even more specific. Even if Pro could actually define the natural observation which is specific to the holy spirit (which is no small feat) - they still are not even close to affirming the resolution because of the very particular (and extremely intentional) way in which it was phrased. Consider carefully : "The existence of personal witness of the holy spirit is an an empirically falsifiable fact" Note in particular, "The existence of ..." Lets assume Pro claims to have witness of the holy spirit but they are unable to provide the natural observation of such. Would that actually falsify the existence of personal witness, of course not, it would only at most note that Pro could not empirically verify their claim only, not that the thing itself as a general event does not exist. Again to refute the claim in general we are back to experiment and again we await the experiment which can generate divine witness and the way to naturally observe it which is it and nothing else. [1] http://www.youtube.com...