[UniOfLife]

(Original post by py0alb)
To teach is to pass on knowledge. Your claim about pork may or may not turn out to be true, but it is most certainly not knowledge. Therefore nothing was taught.

Try again. Or on the other hand, don't bother, because you're wasting everyone's time with your inane and easily dismissed posts. You're getting tiresomely repetitive now.

And why isn't it knowledge? Let's have the answer to that spelled out so you can expose the emptiness of your posts to everyone.

[Hypocrism]

(Original post by UniOfLife)
This is getting stupid. OK then, pork is bad for you is a true religious statement made by a religion that science hasn't discovered yet. Happy? I'll contend that science has not yet found the reason for why pork is bad. Now you cannot possibly ever disprove my statement.

Allow me, though, to take you back to your original statement which I took issue with:
"What has your religion taught you than (sic) science and secular morality would not have done?"

If we take this as a simple question then there are plenty such things, including not to eat pork.

However, you meant to ask "what observable facts has religion taught that observation cannot teach" which is clearly a stupid and empty question.

Not to eat pork is not really a fact you are taught, it's more of an instruction that you are asked to follow without a proper reason being given.

Kind of like biology A-Level

If religion claims to hold truth, it needs to provide things that it's actually claimed are facts, rather than just a ritual or tradition.

[py0alb]

(Original post by UniOfLife)
However, you meant to ask "what observable facts has religion taught that observation cannot teach" which is clearly a stupid and empty question.

I MEANT to ask? Who the **** are you to tell me what I meant? I meant exactly what I said.

If we're putting words in each others mouths, I think YOU mean: "I would have preferred it is you had said because then my argument wouldn't be in complete tatters".

[Good bloke]

(Original post by UniOfLife)
Well, firstly the Israelites saw God splitting the sea for them.

Well, the book claims the Israelites saw that. But is the book actually true and not a work of propaganda or fiction? How would people react to the Harry Potter canon had it been written in those days? Would you believe it to be true because the name of the author had been lost and it appeared to be a work of history?

Even if the splitting of the sea happened, there are scientific, natural explanations for its cause (which have been explored by science), which negate any claim by a book that an invisible divine entity did it.

But more importantly, why doesn't your line of reasoning here prevent everyone from believing anything they are told by anyone?

I don't understand what you are getting at. Why would anyone believe everything they are told, given the universal experience of being lied to, misunderstanding evidence, having only part of a wider picture and so on?

[py0alb]

(Original post by UniOfLife)
And why isn't it knowledge?

Are you really that out of your depth that you need to ask that? Sadly, it appears so. I suggest you google "epistemology".

[noisy06]

(Original post by Good bloke)
Religion is all about the imposition of the will of a few on the many. If few have been called and have hidden, unproveable knowledge revealed to them by an invisible entity, and they can persuade the masses that this is true, then they are in a position of enormous power. Such divine revelation is very convenient to those seeking power in this way.

It is only in the era of modern science and social revolution that the masses have begun to question the power and basis of religions, and on TSR you can easily see how the current young generation is taking this new thinking on religion to its heart. A massively greater proportion of it is atheist compared to the preceding generation and this acceleration of atheism is likely to overwhelm religion by the end of this century, at least in the west.

The cat's out of the bag. Tell me, how dare you make such a ridiculous assertion based upon the historical actions of a few sects from one faith? Aside from the fact that you have blind faith, tell me how scholars in Islam have "enormous power" and how the early generation have gained from this mass deception. (So apparently they unanimously agreed on a lie at a national level in Arabia 14 centuries ago and then went about creating intricate texts and details all in an effort to "gain" something out of this complex self-deception and deceiving others). Believe it or not this is one of the fringe theories from academic Orientalists, one majority of them have rejected themselves.. Academically speaking, this theory is not plausible one iota. It probably makes more sense to believe in Santa Clause.

[noisy06]

(Original post by py0alb)
Has the author of the bible?

Well yeah. Pretty boldly actually.

[Good bloke]

(Original post by UniOfLife)
And why isn't it knowledge?

Surely a scientific proposal for which there is no supporting evidence is a hypothesis? Not knowledge. Among some it may be called a supposition, but not knowledge. Surely?

[UniOfLife]

(Original post by py0alb)
Are you really that out of your depth that you need to ask that? Sadly, it appears so. I suggest you google "epistemology".

I've tried doing this the sensible way with me putting forward the arguments showing your posts to be wrong and empty but you're not getting it. So now I'm asking you to spell out precisely why you say that the claim about pork, even if true, is not "knowledge". Because when you do so, you will have shown why your argument is empty.

Of course you can refuse and I'm sure that will make your position stronger.

[py0alb]

(Original post by noisy06)
Well yeah. Pretty boldly actually.

Really? What was his name and who was it that interviewed him?

[UniOfLife]

(Original post by Good bloke)
Well, the book claims the Israelites saw that. But is the book actually true and not a work of propaganda or fiction? How would people react to the Harry Potter canon had it been written in those days? Would you believe it to be true because the name of the author had been lost and it appeared to be a work of history?

Even if the splitting of the sea happened, there are scientific, natural explanations for its cause (which have been explored by science), which negate any claim by a book that an invisible divine entity did it.



I don't understand what you are getting at. Why would anyone believe everything they are told, given the universal experience of being lied to, misunderstanding evidence, having only part of a wider picture and so on?

What I'm getting at is that your arguments would lead us to conclude that we should not believe a single thing we are told by anyone about anything. And yet no one follows or even claims that conclusion.

[noisy06]

(Original post by py0alb)
Really? What was his name and who was it that interviewed him?

You've never heard of the writers of the gospels?

[UniOfLife]

(Original post by Good bloke)
Surely a scientific proposal for which there is no supporting evidence is a hypothesis? Not knowledge. Among some it may be called a supposition, but not knowledge. Surely?

There certainly is evidence though. The Creator of the world and souls etc told his creations about this piece of knowledge and they handed the knowledge down through the generations. Why doesn't that make it a piece of knowledge? Yes I know that the evidence may be weak but is there anything inherently here that prevents the statement being a piece of knowledge?

[dina12]

God says:

“God is the Creator of all things and over all things He has authority.” (Quran 39:62)

[py0alb]

(Original post by UniOfLife)
I've tried doing this the sensible way with me putting forward the arguments showing your posts to be wrong and empty but you're not getting it. So now I'm asking you to spell out precisely why you say that the claim about pork, even if true, is not "knowledge". Because when you do so, you will have shown why your argument is empty.

Of course you can refuse and I'm sure that will make your position stronger.

It is not knowledge because it is not a justified true belief. I will leave it to you to expound upon the definition of justified.

So amuse me by attempting to now show how this definition contradicts my original statement. You will have to demonstrate that the two concepts of "that which is observable" and "that which is known by science and secular morality" are identical. Good luck with that

[Good bloke]

how dare you make such a ridiculous assertion based upon the historical actions of a few sects from one faith?

When you use language like that it implies that you either have the power to have me punished, or wish you had.

I dare because I am living in a free, enlightened western society that is becoming ever more free of religiously-influenced laws and conventions. Anyway, it isn't ridiculous.

(Original post by noisy06)
tell me how scholars in Islam have "enormous power" and how the early generation have gained from this mass deception.

Think back to Mohammed, the first Islamic scholar. He was a mediaeval warlord who needed to gain popular support. What better way to get that support than to be the single mouthpiece of Allah? That the religion he started is still following what he laid down over a thousand years later says more about the modern people who follow it than about his political needs and methods.

Of course, many modern Islamic scholars use the religion to control the masses in such diverse countries as Saudi Arabia and Iran and, soon, Egypt. Do you deny that?

[py0alb]

(Original post by noisy06)
You've never heard of the writers of the gospels?

You said "author", not "authors".

Besides, have you ever read a direct quote from Matthew, Mark, Luke and John about the nature of their exact contribution?

[Hypocrism]

(Original post by dina12)
God says:

“God is the Creator of all things and over all things He has authority.” (Quran 39:62)

Not over meee!!!! (or anything)

[Good bloke]

(Original post by UniOfLife)
There certainly is evidence though. The Creator of the world and souls etc told his creations about this piece of knowledge and they handed the knowledge down through the generations. Why doesn't that make it a piece of knowledge? Yes I know that the evidence may be weak but is there anything inherently here that prevents the statement being a piece of knowledge?

The fact that it is unsupported weak hearsay, from an unscientific source with an obvious bias - and unrepeatable.

[py0alb]

(Original post by Good bloke)
The fact that it is unsupported weak hearsay, from an unscientific source with an obvious bias - and unrepeatable.

If the religious were as naively unskeptical about all outrageous claims as they are about the laughable "evidence" for their particular religious beliefs, they would be the biggest bunch of mugs in the world. Fortunately, they are not entirely stupid, just hypocrites.