Thread:User talk:Tmtoulouse/Bump: You know that obnoxious thing people do on the internet when they've said something and they feel they haven't been paid enough attention? I'm doing that./reply (19)

Well, most deist/theist worldviews include an afterlife, so they actually make additional predictions. Adding a deity to the model, and the assumption that we will observe the deity post mortem, produces additional predicted observations.

The problem with your metamodel, is that you are looking at things in a static/atemporal manner, rather than a dynamic manner, not taking into account that observations (and also predicted observations) vary over time.

We can talk about objective time, in the sense of something which is a property of the external universe, and which we share with other observers. And we can talk about subjective time, which is something relative to ourselves as individuals. (Roughly speaking, subjective time is relative to the frame of reference of our own consciousness; objective time is relative to some frame of reference external to our own consciousness.) Our individual personal observations are indexed with respect to subjective time - we have no observations prior to the beginning of subjective time, nor after its end, even if objective time extends beyond those bounds.

If death is extinction, then our subjective time is a finite duration, t0 >= t >= t1.

If there is an afterlife, then our subjective time extends beyond t1, at least up to some other time t2, where t1 < t2. (Whether it extends infinitely past t1, or eventually ends, is not relevant at this point).

The no God model predicts certain observations within the bounds of t0 >= t >= t1, and no observations whatsoever for t > t1.

The God+afterlife model predicts the same observations within the bounds of t0 >= t >= t1, and further observations (e.g. experiences of God) for t1 > t >= t2.

So, we've added one or more elements to our model. What we've done to the residuals, is hard to say, because you've defined the residuals in a time-invariant manner, when the residuals really need to be defined in a time-variant one.