JayUtah
Penultimate Amazing
Why would you assume every species should have equal population?
-
Security incident: ISF was recently accessed by intruders. Please change your password, and change it anywhere else you used it. Read more
Gratitude, Compulsion, Idiocy or Nobility?
- Thread starter Kumar
- Start date
Why would you assume every species should have equal population?
JayUtah
Penultimate Amazing
I do not practice religion. However, I have studied various religions with their masters (priests, imams, rabbis, etc.) academically beyond the normal level in order better to understand them. And by virtue of this I have demonstrated greater knowledge than you in world religion. In fact, as you many observe by reading my conversations with Mormons, I know more about Mormonism than many Mormons. You may also recall when I had to remind you of the schisms in Jainism -- facts you either did not know or had chosen not to acknowledge. You admitted your deficiency in your knowledge of world religion, remember? So that is no longer a point of contention. You are ignorant both of science and of religion. Your critics have demonstrated their knowledge superior to yours in both science and religion. You can demonstrate proficiency in neither.
I'm curious why you think the same standard of ability should apply to practicing science versus religion. Except for a small percentage of clergy, most people do not practice a religion as their full-time occupation. Most people do not have to pass tests of proficiency in order to practice a religion. Unlike religion, science requires a large body of knowledge in order to practice it effectively. There is no suitable analogue for religion; it may be practiced by people who simply want to believe.
So nice try at turnabout, but you lost there too. Even though you may claim to practice a religion, you really don't know much about religion.
Last edited:
JayUtah
Penultimate Amazing
Sure, if you want to be as reviled as he is for it. Both you and Jabba have consciously and purposely chosen your audience, and those audiences are responding to you both in a predictable way. That you persist in the face of that does not give you an excuse to complain about allegedly shabby treatment.
In your case you have chosen an English-speaking forum. But you do not speak English. Nor do you have any means to reliably and effectively translate the debate into a language you understand. ;This is a problem. And it's your problem. Everyone else is doing the proper thing.
It means, neither you are following any religion nor is your option but you just know these by getting some non disciplined and non dedicated scattered knowledge because you are practically not involved in these. Moreover, you neither fóllow nor únderstand jainism so not entitled to comment on it, least. About science, it ís also limíted to your subject, not all. So whatever you claimed can not be really valid except your subject and if I am odd to comment on these except Jainism, you will also be taken as equally odd except your subject. No matter how much scattered knowledge wé àcquired which still will not be really worth. So take care accordingly.
We have to base whatever is apparent to us. Wé need to check if carnivores are lesser than herbivores and if yes how?
JayUtah
Penultimate Amazing
No, as I said, I studied them systematically with their designated teachers, not just from "scattered knowledge."
Asked and answered. Unlike science, religion does not have to be formally studied in order to become a congregant. One may practice a religion while knowing comparatively little about it. And you did not address the part where you apparently did not know about the schisms in Jainism, whereas I did. In fact, you haven't addressed any of the questions I put to you about your article purporting to link science and Jainism. You're now doing nothing except trying to poison the well. Are all Jains as dishonest and duplicitous as you are?
Bwahahaha! You do realize it's what I do for a living, right?
JayUtah
Penultimate Amazing
You seem to be trying to make some point out of the fact that animals lower on the food chain exist in greater populations. You seem to think greater numbers indicates a favored status. That would imply that, all other things being morally equal, we should see the same numbers of predators and prey. I'm questioning that apparent assumption.
We can only be entitled to discuss, if we are both fully entitled to discuss the same. But neither you are related to Jainism nor I to that science. I do not know, if your subject cóver those subjects specifically. Hence it may be odd to discuss and doubt same. So we have no logic other than just to accept that. However, if you want to comment positively, you are welcomed.
Pixel42
Schrödinger's cat
If numbers are the criteria to being 'lesser' or 'greater' then the greatest living things on earth are bacteria. The total biomass of bacteria exceeds that of all plants and animals.
Nó, unless you keep full faith in religion you can not really únderstand and get benefits ftom that. Apparently, it appears you are a sceptical and non beliver in religion, so doubt so much. About science, I can not imagine any single person can be omniscient about whole science. Hence, you should just limit to your subject not to whole science.
I am trying to undersrand, how nature can be so unjustified that a disharmony in numbers among different animals has caused. Who is responsible to it? Whéther nature or free will? It is very important to understand to avoid extinction in future.
Who can be responsible for it, natúre or we? Great qúestion.
Pixel42
Schrödinger's cat
FTFY.
In bacteria also, we need to understand, which are more, beneficial or harmful?
Porpoise of Life
Illuminator
- Joined
- Oct 5, 2014
- Messages
- 4,950
Which religion? There are many and they all disagree on nearly everything.
Because science is real. It's easy to 'know everything' if yo just make it up as you go along.
And again, by your own logic, you shouldn't comment on science at all.
Consistency, Kumar.
fagin
Philosopher
JayUtah
Penultimate Amazing
We're not talking about the benefits of a religion. We're talking about the claims of a religion considered as putatively testable claims of fact. Anyone can learn about those simply by reading them, as you encouraged people to do. As I said, I can talk rings around Mormons when it comes to their history and doctrine, because I studied it under the tutelage of some of their prominent leaders. I felt it was important to do if I were going to live among Mormons as an outsider. The reason I can do that is that most practicing Mormons receive on a rudimentary education in their history and doctrine.
I find a similar situation among Catholics. I find the vast majority of their adherents know very little about it that can be discovered in an academic fashion. I lived in Italy for a time, and found it advantageous, there as in Utah, to learn about the prevailing religion. I was taught by a Capuchin monk, who also gave me insight into Christian ascetism, and by a Jesuit.
Before and during my time living in the Middle East, I studied Judaism with a rabbi in the United States and Islam with an imam in Cairo. The congregations of these different faiths also exhibit varying understanding of the details of their religion's history and doctrine. The point being you're trying to equivocate the experience of practicing a religion with understanding the testable claims a religion makes. My argument does not require the subject experience.
Some days ago you frequently posted links to references and tutorials on Jainism. You suggested that studying those catechisms would equip your critics to have a reasoned discussion with you about your faith. And now that people purport to have studied and received that knowledge, you're telling them it isn't sufficient. As usual, you're shifting the goalposts to create an excuse why the facts and challenges others present are not something you have to face.
I am a skeptic, which means I believe that which can be established by verifiable fact and well-reasoned inference. "Doubt so much" seems to apply an emotional value judgment to that approach. It's a good thing I don't need your approbation to practice rational skepticism in a forum devoted to rational skepticism.
It's a good thing science isn't based on omniscience, then. You're just replaying the argument that unless one knows everything, one can't know enough to refute you.
We could have a debate over whether the above standard is reasonable, but we'll save that for another day. Surely, since it's your standard, you must implicitly believe it's reasonable. So you won't mind if we apply it today to your source. You linked to this, http://jainworld.com/jainbooks/asceticism/ch26.asp , which is an excerpt from the book Jainism: A Religion of Ascetism. Who wrote that book? Do you even know? The same site sports a bibliography of books on Jainism, http://jainworld.com/library/englishbookname.asp , but the book you cite doesn't exist. A search of the catalog at the Library of Congress (which lists every book published in the United States) does not have it. Only through diligent manipulation of URLs on the site was I able to find the name of its author, one "Professor (Dr.) Bhagchandra," whom we must reasonably assume is the Indian scholar Bhagchandra Jain.
Here's the funny thing. He's not a scientist and doesn't even claim to be one. How does that work according to your advice that scientists should only speak within their narrow range of professional qualification?
So let's look at your source. It's a chapter from the book, transcribed into HTML for web presentation, consisting of paragraphs numbered 184 through 192. We'll take each of these paragraphs in turn.
184. The author makes the claim that Jainism is one of the most scientific religions in the world, and that he finds no contradiction between it and science. The first is simply a conclusory statement, not evidence. The second would require expertise in science to have probative value. It could be that Bhagchandra finds no contradiction because he doesn't know anything about science. It goes on to discuss creation ex nihilo, which is believed by some, but not all, other religions. That's essentially a straw man; we have shown we are able to find tenets of Jainism that contradict observable fact. The author claims science has confirmed the universe has no beginning and no end. But the Big Bang is essentially where secular cosmology starts. The physical universe does have a beginning; there is no data regarding anything that may have existed prior to that.
185. The author alleges scientific confirmation of the Jain doctrine that plants have souls and feel emotions like humans. He bases this on the work of Jagadis Chandra Bose. He does not cite the work, but we presume he means Bose's 1919 Researches on the Irritability of Plants and its predecessor Plant Response. As we suspect, Bose's work contains nothing to support your author's claim that plants "have life like human beings, and also experience feelings of joy, sorrow, anger, and fear like us." Bose found instead that plants have hydrostatic and hydraulic motor responses to various stimuli that would also produce effects in humans -- variations in light, heat, chemical environment, etc. Bhagchandra extends Bose's conclusions far beyond what the data support. The author also claims science has confirmed rocks have souls, but doesn't name which scientists have allegedly confirmed it.
186. Purports that disparity among animal species confirms the doctrine of Karma. That is blatantly misleading, as science does not explain differentiation of species by transmigration of souls. Science has a wholly different explanation for the mechanism by which speciation occurs. Bhagchandra is here committing the fallacy of converting the conditional. He goes on correctly to note that neither science nor Jainism feels the need to conjure up a supreme being. But then of course neither do atheists, who discard the whole need for religion in the first place.
187. Repeats the already-debunked claim that Einstein supports Jainism.
188-189. Claims unnamed scientists support Jain cosmology. However, the concept of Alokakasa is expressly denied in the standard cosmological model. Modern science specifically disallows that our universe exists in an enclosing metaspace. Further, Jainism expresses the universe in a specific geometry which is entirely at odds with the prevailing Hubble model. Bhagchandra seems to let pass in utter silence these specific claims that science disagrees with. While both Jain cosmology and various branches of physics talk about space and time, they offer up completely different and incompatible models of how those concepts behave. The author seems to think that just because two bodies of knowledge mention the same concepts, one must confirm the other. Even more amusingly, Bhagchandra refers to the "modern" concept of ether and tries to say that confirms Jain doctrines of Dharma and Adharma. Modern science tested and disproved the aetheric hypothesis of transmission in 1887, so it hardly qualifies as something that confirms Jainism.
190. Claims credit for Jainism predicting certain modes of atomic bonds, but provides nothing beyond the undocumented one-sentence claim.
191. Claims the Jain vegetarian diet has been "totally supported" by medical doctors. But he doesn't go any farther than that or name any doctors. This is just a naked claim. Bhagchandra then claims one should distill water to make it safe to drink, but without harming the bacteria in the water. That's nothing except colossal ignorance of what in the water actually makes it harmful. We also have to note that one of the most common bacteria, E. coli, includes strains harmful to humans and is most commonly found on vegetables. Jainism's relationship with microbiology, as expressed by Bhagchandra, is outright fantasy. He sums up with a lackluster defense of day-only dining, which is supposed to prevent nocturnally active insects etc. from being ingested with the food and thus spared the violence of being eaten. This is based on no science he cares to list, but simply a series of factual allegations.
192. Gives a laundry list of sciences, none of which Bhagchandra is qualified in, and drops the same naked claim we had at the beginning: these are all compatible with Jainism.
Since I have shown your author doesn't meet your own criteria, I assume you agree he has been disqualified.
Dancing David
Penultimate Amazing
Dancing David
Penultimate Amazing
The answer is the harmful are in a tiny minority
JayUtah
Penultimate Amazing
Indeed. Above I mention E. coli, but the fact is that only some strains of it are harmful. Most aren't, and in fact you would die without a suitable flora of them in your gut. Vegetarians especially, since that's what breaks down the cellulose in vegetables into something humans can digest.