Could you expand on how they fail in their expectations? I’m not sure what exactly it is you’re referring to.
To use the example of Spiritualism the entire claim revolved around the ability to talk to the dead and for the dead to easily manifest themselves through mediums. That fails miserably (hence the very long history of mediums being caught engaging in fraudulent behavior often involving cheap magic tricks.) But, just as with God, the solution has been to move to less and less testable hypotheses, so that instead of forming actual entities that speak and interact many modern mediums claim only to be able to get vague feelings and images.
Honestly, I would say that the idea of an afterlife is much harder to assail than one of God.
That seems like a valid point. There’s a difference in degree here. I’m not convinced that it is a difference in kind.
To use the example of Spiritualism the entire claim revolved around the ability to talk to the dead and for the dead to easily manifest themselves through mediums. That fails miserably (hence the very long history of mediums being caught engaging in fraudulent behavior often involving cheap magic tricks.) But, just as with God, the solution has been to move to less and less testable hypotheses, so that instead of forming actual entities that speak and interact many modern mediums claim only to be able to get vague feelings and images.
That seems like a valid point. There’s a difference in degree here. I’m not convinced that it is a difference in kind.