Theory of Knowledge Essays

Theory of Knowledge Essays Theory of Knowledge Essay Theory of Knowledge Essay Everyone from all society is related to a belief, to God or others that is believed to have higher power than humans. This technically means that everyone was born believing the existence of afterlife or superiors. I will focus this presentation on the existence of God as the Creator, and the judge on our afterlife. Humans have a unique ability to pass knowledge down to the next generation; it is a very important skill for an advancement of life, and technology. For example we dont have to test how acid can burn the skin off because it has become a knowledge passed by an authority. Biases in approach to knowledge: We live in the world that is biased in approaching to the knowledge by conviction, such as religions and beliefs. I am hat no one in this world can claim that they are skeptics and atheists to the bone. They would have doubt about the existence of God, what will happen afterlife and I am infact almost certain that if there is a plane filled with the most well known skeptics and atheists, and the plane is crashing down these people would shout out, God, Help us etc. This happens because we live in the world that has obligation, ideals and a strong belief that God do exist. This then is passed to us in our early days and we subconsciously believe and graciously accepted these beliefs. Our brain works and memorizes at almost all the time, In our head we can easily produce an image of an angel, a handsome or a really pretty girl inside a brilliant white robe surrounded by magnificent light. But in this world, who has ever seen an angel in their life? This is a simple example on how we have been influenced without us noticing. If angels do exist and they happen to be an old lady with a broomstick then maybe we have burnt a couple of them in the past. And if witches do rest with a pretty face and keep wearing a white clothing rather than being gothic chances are we will praise them as an angel. Possible Uncertainties: Religions and beliefs are also passed down from generation to generation, there are a lot of beliefs in this world most of these spiritual beliefs rested on an unstable foundation which is shaking as our race advance even further. All these spiritual beliefs have the same reasoning, the same pattern! Because I personally believe that these religions and beliefs are all attempts on explaining of what is going on around the civilization at the time. These attempts are usually written, and used as a guidance on how to lead a proper life at the time. This written explanation and thesis are then classified as the holy book for the religion. The Bible for the Christian, Al-Quran for the Moslems and some that is not named. Some of the common things found with these religions and spiritual beliefs are a legitimately higher power, a happy ending for believer, a bad ending for those who goes against it. If we use our logic for justification combined with empirical evidence it is clear that these beliefs are shortcuts in getting people to do the right thing! If you are a thief, you will go to hell, if you kill, you will go to hell, if you do bad things you will go to hell, on the other hand you be good you go to heaven! To even further attract believers. The term heaven is modified in a couple of way, in Christianity you get to see Jesus Christ and sit next to God, in the case of Vikings in heaven or what they call Valhalla, warriors that gets there will be able to fight all they want and kill however they please. Sounds like a terrible heaven yet attractive to these Vikings. I dont have any idea on what hell would be for the Vikings, perhaps it is a peaceful quiet place where there is no argument! As you can see heaven and hell is modified to an extent it is loved and hated by the civilization this is a simple yet valid proof that these spiritual beliefs are made for a purpose. These hypotheses on how the world was created has advance over time too. Let us see one of our oldest civilizations in the world and their beliefs. The aborigines have a less complex and a rather simple way of explaining how the world was created in comparison with Christians, Islamic and Jewish Orthodoxy way of explaining the creation of the world. This I believe is due to the fact that the level of knowledge has changed over the time. The faithful believers may say that they have proofs; I can recall that when I was still in my fifth grade, I argued with a priest and she told me all these miracles that God has done in the past, My best approach on this is that the people at biblical time have mistakenly regard natural phenomenon and disaster as Gods action. The Chinese sacrifice children to save their village from angry demons or God, The Mayans sacrifice to please the God, or as a thanksgiving. Another set of evidence can also derive from the Noahs arc which is believed by the Jewish, the Moslems and the Christians. The Chinese and Greeks have a traditional folklore explaining such an event of big flood? This shows that a big flood did happen and all civilizations tried to explain it. Noahs journey could very well be true but of course the story in the bible is not true. Because the Chinese and the Greeks have lived it through, maybe the bibles saying on how the world was wiped out would be a truthful account for the Jewish civilizations. Enough with the empirical evidence, lets try the logical way of approaching this problem. In the bible almost at a constant time God interfere and show his greatness through his miracles and curses but I have never stopped wondering why a world with 6 Billions population and a communication and media capability such as today do not have reports on miracles nor curses? Limitation of Knowledge: With these faith and beliefs in our society our it slows down the society to improve to the next level. Beliefs and faith into a prehistoric time hypothesis has been an obstacle into advancement of knowledge. Especially noting that these hypotheses came with a threat of eternal torture and pain. The believers would tend to take everything for granted, they will lose their sense of curiosity, and they stop looking for imperfections, the causes because they believe to an extent where they readily say the term know This close-minded approach has destroyed and limits our advancement of knowledge. In some cases truths are denied and hypotheses are seen as a controversy or as an insult to God or the beliefs. In the old Europe Religions have final authority in science, for centuries Europeans believed that the earth was the center of the universe and the Sun revolved around it, this is based on Aristotle finding that is approved by the belief of that civilization. Copernicus found a more truthful planetary structure of our solar system but he has avoided controversy and expose his findings on his deathbed. Galilei supports this thesis as a factual, and caused investigation by the Inquisition. It is almost 250 years later, in the 1850s that another big opposition by science on religion comes out, this is when Charles Darwin brought in his Theory of evolution. And when we think that the resistance by beliefs and religions has stopped, in 1925 a court case was brought up against John T. Scopes a biology teacher that wanted to teach Darwins theory of evolution, Scopes lost the case and was fined $100 his last words were quoted as follow. Today it is the public-school teachers, tomorrow the private, the next day the preachers and the lecturers, the magazines, the books, the newspapers. After a while, Your Honour it is the setting of a man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums, we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth century when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind. Our perception has been shaped since we were young, and has developed within a society that has strong belief of existence of God. It is very hard to change, and even if we can change our perception and beliefs, it takes time and to completely wipe off these spiritual beliefs from our world will take generations and generations. Religions, spiritual beliefs, they have made mistakes, and they will make mistakes again the biggest questions that arise from this is Do we still have to believe it? When will we stop believing it? Only time will answer this question, even though I will not be able to live to see it, I am sure we will one day become a society that justify with logic, and empirical evidence! I am certain that we will be able to be perfect rationalists and live in harmony.