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to its falsification." This means if someone states something and cannot say what would prove it false, then it is not meaningful. For example, if someone claimed they were the fattest person in existence, but were willing to accept that as false if they were to meet a fatter person, that would be a meaningful statement. Flew claimed that religious language is therefore not meaningful as religious people will let nothing count against their beliefs. Religious people make excuses to get around the contradictions and problems with the idea of God, and Flew calls this "death by a thousand qualifications".

Basil Mitchell has argued that this is not true, saying that the evidence against God is not overwhelming and religious people still trust in God despite it. They would, however, accept that God did not exist if there was overwhelming evidence. Richard Swinburne attempted to discredit the falsification principle by finding a counter example. He said that the statement "the toys only come out and move around when no one is watching them" cannot be meaningful by the falsification principle as it cannot be proved wrong, however, it is still meaningful as we understand what it means. Depending on their views of the principle and the mindsets of religious people, philosophers have disagreed over what the falsification principle means for religious language.

Other philosophers have argued that religious language is removed from any usual criteria of meaningfulness, such as the verification and falsification principles. They have defined religious language as part of "non-cognitive" language. This is language that cannot be proven true or false through knowledge. It includes ethical, moral and emotive language that uses myth or symbol. R. B. Braithwait argues that religious language is non-cognitive, as so its meaningfulness is proven by its emotional effects and how it affects a person's life.

Ludwig Wittgenstein argued that language is used in completely different ways depending on the context. He said it is like playing a specific game, it has particular rules, and people who are not involved in the game do not understand the rules. Wittgenstein said that a non-believer cannot understand the religious language, and so to him it will not be meaningful, however he cannot claim it is meaningless to everyone.

It is difficult for us assess talk about God, as the idea of God is supposed to be beyond our experience and understanding. The various theories determining meaningfulness, mainly the verification and falsification principles, have failed to win much support. Both have been discredited with examples that philosophers believe should count as meaningful. Philosophers have failed to develop criterion to decide what language can and cannot be meaningful, and therefore failed to define religious language as meaningful or not. However, people do communicate about God, and can pass religious messages to one another, so their language must hold some meaning, in some form.

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