Gratitude, Compulsion, Idiocy or Nobility?

[MRC_Hans]

We have to base whatever is apparent to us. Wé need to check if carnivores are lesser than herbivores and if yes how?

Kumar, do try to think before you ask. What would happen if there were as many carnivores as herbivores?

Hans

 

[bruto]

Kumar, do try to think before you ask. What would happen if there were as many carnivores as herbivores?

Hans

Good luck with that.

 

[Kumar]

Kumar, do try to think before you ask. What would happen if there were as many carnivores as herbivores?

Hans

Good assessment. Ít means nature do mot súppor as much to carnivores as it support to herbivóres.

 

[JayUtah]

Good assessment. Ít means nature do mot súppor as much to carnivores as it support to herbivóres.

Wrong answer.

 

[Kumar]

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.

Still few things can be common in all relígións. Therefore they are classífíed under óne çommon term ie religíon.
Reàlity and a&f has some relàtión. At léast religión antícipate it for gód.
Simply It is cómmonly anticipated as noñ A&F. Rest all presentatión will either bé lógical or informatións available on internet subject to disscussions and évaluatíón.

 

[JayUtah]

Still few things can be common in all relígións. Therefore they are classífíed under óne çommon term ie religíon.

Non sequitur. Having one name for people who believe things on faith does not mean they believe the same things on faith. There is no one true or common religion.

 

[Peregrinus]

What Jay said.

And are you using an Esperanto keyboard, perhaps? What's with the diacritical marks that seem to come and go in direct proportion to your garbled or less garbled posts.

 

[Kumar]

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.

Sorry, but I feel, your profile may suggest "master of all master of none". It you tend to study all subjects, you can get confused and can not be expert in all unless you become somewhat like omniscient. Moreover you being skeptic & non-believer in religion, I am not sure you could have got absolute knowledge on these. Yes, you could had got just scattered knowledge.

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.

Thanks for spending so much time on it but we have not have a logic or authority to doubt or discuss with doubt on anything which should be superior to what we understand or what science understand with non-A&F. Yes A&Fs of science can be compared with religious A&Fs. You may only base it because religious basis are more consistent and more popular than your or science basis. Whatever anyone present, may need not to be qualified because he has just interpreted other's facts i.e facts of omniscient...god like we occassionally present inspite of having no qualification. Although I feel, I can refute all your points logically even though not expert in science but I feel no sense to doubt a superior understanding or a faith and loose benefits from it. You simply, interpreted things in your preception differently.

You may read it:
25 TYPES OF WRONG BELIEFS (MITHYATVA){in Jainism)
http://jainworld.com/jainbooks/images/29/25_TYPES_OF_WRONG_BELIEF.htm

 

[Kumar]

25 TYPES OF WRONG BELIEFS (MITHYATVA)[ in Jainism]
There are twenty-five different types of wrong beliefs:

1. Stubbornly supporting the false view point, without
discrimination of true or false,

2. Believing in all gods and teachers without discrimination,
3. Persisting in views and opinions, in spite of knowing that they could be false,
4. Suspicion about true religion,
5. Absolute ignorance,
6. Celebrating so-called festive or holy occasions of gods or teachers who do not conform to true religion,
7. Worshipping Tirthankars with selfish motives,
8. Agreeing with hypocrites,
9. Considering living as non-living, and
10. Considering non-living as living,
11. Considering saint or monks as non-saintly or no monk,
12. Considering non-saints or no monks as saints or monks,
13. Considering liberated souls as non-liberated, and
14. Considering non-liberated souls as liberated,
15. Considering holy as unholy, and
16. Considering unholy as holy,
17. Considering the path of Jainism as equivalent to other paths, and
18. Considering other faiths as equivalent to Jainism,
19. Understating the facts of Jainism,
20. Overstating the facts of Jainism, or
21. Stating contrary to the facts of Jainism,
22. Disrespecting teachers, saints, etc.,
23. Not believing in religious practices,
24. Glorifying ignorance, and
25. Ill-behaving with teachers, saints, etc.

If I have indulged in any of these above twenty-five beliefs, personally, asked, or encouraged others to do so, then in the presence of infinite Siddhas and Kevalis, I ask for forgiveness. May all my such faults be dissolved. TASSA MICHCHHAMI DUKKADAM.
http://jainworld.com/jainbooks/images/29/25_TYPES_OF_WRONG_BELIEF.htm

Above are 25 wrong beliefs in Jainism which Jains should not practice. However these can be specific to Jainism.

 

[ShamelessGit]

Since when was a bird not an animal?

They don't know they are bound for slaughter, but they do know where they were fed. End of thread.

This really should have been the end of the thread, but it went on for 10 more pages

 

[Kumar]

Non sequitur. Having one name for people who believe things on faith does not mean they believe the same things on faith. There is no one true or common religion.

These things can be common.

1. Keeping faith and getting scientific beneficial affects from it.

2. Physical, mental and spiritual practices and getting health of these.

3. Morality & fear---to avoid natural and social violences.

4. Natural and social harmony.

Many others, general & specifics can be expressed.

 

[bruto]

Good assessment. Ít means nature do mot súppor as much to carnivores as it support to herbivóres.

Nonsense and ignorant balderdash.

I was going to continue here, but after reading the latest application for Dunning-Kruger poster child of the year, I don't think I'll bother.

But I will mention that "master of all master of none" is abundantly nonsensical. Did you even bother to think whether it could possibly make sense? If you are going to dip into non-native idioms, it's "jack of all trades and master of none." There's a meaning to that phrase, and the terms "jack" and "master" in that phrase have a meaning. You cannot be both a master and not a master at the same time! Not even in the gargling slurry of antilogic that passes for thought here.

 

[JayUtah]

Sorry, but I feel, your profile may suggest "master of all master of none". It you tend to study all subjects, you can get confused and can not be expert in all unless you become somewhat like omniscient. Moreover you being skeptic & non-believer in religion, I am not sure you could have got absolute knowledge on these. Yes, you could had got just scattered knowledge.

All that was previously addressed. Do not simply repeat your previous argument as if nothing happened. If your claim is that your critics are confused or underinformed, and that their refutation should not be trusted, you have to do more than just hurl vague accusations to that effect. You have to correct the misunderstanding. You have to supply the missing knowledge. Otherwise your words are just pointless bluster.

Thanks for spending so much time on it...

I clearly spent much more time than you on it. You simply Googled it and likely didn't even read it. You obviously didn't follow up on any of the authorities mentioned or the scientific principles alluded to. Yet you are arrogant and dishonest enough to claim you are better informed than your critics. Are all Jains as lazy and dishonest as you, or are you the exception?

...but we have not have a logic or authority to doubt or discuss with doubt on anything which should be superior to what we understand or what science understand with non-A&F.

Utter nonsense. Despite your desperate deployment of your standard excuse, if someone you insinuate is knowledgeable about science claims the aetheric model of transmission is "modern science," that's a dead giveaway right there. You certainly don't need omniscience or absolute knowledge to refute that. That's abject ignorance, right there.

Although I feel, I can refute all your points logically even though not expert in science but I feel no sense to doubt a superior understanding or a faith and loose benefits from it.

What a sad, sorry excuse for your own deficiency. I bet you can't refute a single one of the points I brought up. You want credit for having superior knowledge and intelligence, but you run from every opportunity to display it. As we learned from your failed challenge to connect all religious to nature, you are quite happy pretending to have knowledge you don't actually have.

Refute them. I dare you.

You simply, interpreted things in your preception differently.

No, I presented facts that disputed your guru's claims. You are unable to refute those facts, and now you're trying to pretend you could if you really wanted to in order to save face.

Jains take a vow of absolute honestly. I hold you in contempt of that vow. Not only are you a substandard student of science, you're a substandard Jain. Shame on you.

 

[Kumar]

Nonsense and ignorant balderdash.

I was going to continue here, but after reading the latest application for Dunning-Kruger poster child of the year, I don't think I'll bother.

But I will mention that "master of all master of none" is abundantly nonsensical. Did you even bother to think whether it could possibly make sense? If you are going to dip into non-native idioms, it's "jack of all trades and master of none." There's a meaning to that phrase, and the terms "jack" and "master" in that phrase have a meaning. You cannot be both a master and not a master at the same time! Not even in the gargling slurry of antilogic that passes for thought here.

Sense is same. You may take it: "Jack of all trades, master of none" i.e

"Someone who is good at many things but excellent at none."

 

[JayUtah]

These things can be common.

1. Keeping faith and getting scientific beneficial affects from it.

2. Physical, mental and spiritual practices and getting health of these.

3. Morality & fear---to avoid natural and social violences.

4. Natural and social harmony.

Many others, general & specifics can be expressed.

But they aren't common. For each of those points I can name ways in which mainstream religions disagree vehemently on them. For example, Fundamentalist Christians are very anti-science; they believe science is a tool used by the devil to deceive the faithful. And as you discovered the hard way, not all religions worship nature. Abrahamic religions, for example, believe they are masters of nature, not its servants.

You already admitted ignorance in comparative religion. You demonstrate almost no useful knowledge about any religion except Jainism. I do not consider you any sort of authority on whether there can be said to be one true or universal religion. You're trying to move the goalposts and insinuate, essentially, that because all religions believe something, they should be considered united in the act of mere belief. That is far to shallow a confederation to support the point you were trying to make with it. You don't get to disregard what is believed in order to claim belief alone belies a universal source.

 

[bruto]

These things can be common.

1. Keeping faith and getting scientific beneficial affects from it.

2. Physical, mental and spiritual practices and getting health of these.

3. Morality & fear---to avoid natural and social violences.

4. Natural and social harmony.

Many others, general & specifics can be expressed.

It may be that those things can be common, but even the most cursory bit of historical thought would provide abundant evidence that they are not. Jains may not kill each other, but members of other religions do, with great frequency, gusto, and declarations of righteousness. Radical Hindus massacre Muslims, Muslims massacre Christians, Christians and Muslims massacre each other, and so on. There is no natural and social harmony in the real world of religion. It is fundamentalist Christians in this country who deny global warming and, in many cases, explicitly despise environmental protection, considering it heretical. The grounds for that are religious, like it or not. Plenty of religions disavow or deny practices that science has good reason to consider good for health. Catholics and fundamentalist Christians oppose birth control, and thereby contribute massively to the world wide epidemic of AIDS. Jehovah's witnesses oppose blood transfusions, and Christian Scientists oppose medicine altogether. One could go on and on, but your list is pie in the sky. In the real world, religion has all too often been a blight on science and health.

"In hoc signo vinces." The cross has marched at the head of armies for millennia.

 

[JayUtah]

Sense is same. You may take it: "Jack of all trades, master of none" i.e

"Someone who is good at many things but excellent at none."

That's an aphorism thrown out far too often by people who simply can't fathom that others are more deeply and broadly informed than they. It may surprise you to learn, Kumar, that you're not the smartest guy in the room, on any of the subjects you've raised.

More to the point, you offered that maxim in one breath and then in the other breath presented a bunch of ignorant nonsense from Bhagchandra Jain that essentially purported to do what you said can't or shouldn't be done -- speak from areas outside one's narrow expertise. The test was to see whether you would hold your own sources to the same standards as you do your critics. You failed the test.

 

[Kumar]

All that was previously addressed. Do not simply repeat your previous argument as if nothing happened. If your claim is that your critics are confused or underinformed, and that their refutation should not be trusted, you have to do more than just hurl vague accusations to that effect. You have to correct the misunderstanding. You have to supply the missing knowledge. Otherwise your words are just pointless bluster.



I clearly spent much more time than you on it. You simply Googled it and likely didn't even read it. You obviously didn't follow up on any of the authorities mentioned or the scientific principles alluded to. Yet you are arrogant and dishonest enough to claim you are better informed than your critics. Are all Jains as lazy and dishonest as you, or are you the exception?



Utter nonsense. Despite your desperate deployment of your standard excuse, if someone you insinuate is knowledgeable about science claims the aetheric model of transmission is "modern science," that's a dead giveaway right there. You certainly don't need omniscience or absolute knowledge to refute that. That's abject ignorance, right there.



What a sad, sorry excuse for your own deficiency. I bet you can't refute a single one of the points I brought up. You want credit for having superior knowledge and intelligence, but you run from every opportunity to display it. As we learned from your failed challenge to connect all religious to nature, you are quite happy pretending to have knowledge you don't actually have.

Refute them. I dare you.



No, I presented facts that disputed your guru's claims. You are unable to refute those facts, and now you're trying to pretend you could if you really wanted to in order to save face.

Jains take a vow of absolute honestly. I hold you in contempt of that vow. Not only are you a substandard student of science, you're a substandard Jain. Shame on you.

Sorry, nothing more to discuss with you since you are making personal harsh comments on me and on religions in your odd perceptions. Good Bye.

 

[JayUtah]

Sorry, nothing more to discuss with you since you are making personal harsh comments on me and on religions in your odd perceptions. Good Bye.

I am calling you to account for your bad behavior. You're telling me I can't possibly know what I'm talking about, and then at the same time bragging that you could refute my posts but simply choose not to. That's arrogant and rude. And since you're coming from a religion that seems to pride itself on certain ideals, I'm asking you to reconcile your behavior with those ideals.

If you want to prove that I'm not a "master of the trade," as you insinuated, then refute my analysis of Bhagchandra. I think you know you can't, and that's why you're making up excuses to ignore your most challenging critics.

 

[Kumar]

I am calling you to account for your bad behavior. You're telling me I can't possibly know what I'm talking about, and then at the same time bragging that you could refute my posts but simply choose not to. That's arrogant and rude. And since you're coming from a religion that seems to pride itself on certain ideals, I'm asking you to reconcile your behavior with those ideals.

If you want to prove that I'm not a "master of the trade," as you insinuated, then refute my analysis of Bhagchandra. I think you know you can't, and that's why you're making up excuses to ignore your most challenging critics.

Things should not be one sided. Whatever you will give you can also get similarly in return. You have first insulted me, my preferred religion and all other religions and that too in Religion forum. Mine was just reactions but your were actions. Be ready, to get what you give. I can not be emotionally or idiotically provoked to support odd things. Respect all to get respect from all. You are neither god not A&F--so base accordingly.