Template:Foreknowledge/doc
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Contents |
Usage
Criteria
For the criteria:
{{foreknowledge
|1=Text
|2=TextAsAdjective}}
Gives:
For a statement to be TextAsAdjective foreknowledge, it must fit all of the five following criteria:
- It must be accurate. A statement cannot be TextAsAdjective foreknowledge if it is not accurate, because knowledge (and thus foreknowledge) excludes inaccurate statements.
- It must be in the Text. A statement cannot be TextAsAdjective foreknowledge if it is not in the Text, because TextAsAdjective foreknowledge definitionally can only come from the Text itself.
- It must be unambiguous. A statement cannot be TextAsAdjective foreknowledge if multiple outcomes could fulfill the foreknowledge, because ambiguity prevents one from knowing whether the foreknowledge was intentional or not.
- It must be improbable. A statement cannot be TextAsAdjective foreknowledge if it reasonably could be the result of a pure guess, because foreknowledge requires a person to actually know a statement and a guess is not valid knowledge. This also excludes contemporary beliefs that happened be true, without a solid reason for said beliefs.
- It must have been unknown. A statement cannot be TextAsAdjective foreknowledge if it reasonably could be the result of an educated guess based off contemporary knowledge, because foreknowledge requires a person to know a statement when it would have been impossible, outside of supernatural power, for that person to know it.
Checklist
For the checklist:
{{foreknowledge
|1=Text
|2=TextAsAdjective
|3=Claim
|4=ClaimTrue
|5=ClaimTextual
|6=ClaimUnambiguous
|7=ClaimImprobable
|8=ClaimUnknown
|9=ClaimForeknowledge}}
Gives:
Summary of claim: The Text accurately Claim, which would have been unknowable.
Does this statement meet all criteria necessary for TextAsAdjective foreknowledge?
- Is it accurate? ClaimAccurate
- Is it in the Text? ClaimTextual
- Is it unambiguous? ClaimUnambiguous
- Is it improbable? ClaimImprobable
- Was it unknown? ClaimUnknown
Thus, this statement ClaimForeknowledge an example of TextAsAdjective foreknowledge.
Problems
For the problems:
{{foreknowledge
|1=Text
|10=Filler}}
A few generic faults plague effectively all "foreknowledge" in sacred texts:
- Scientific and historical knowledge necessarily must detail every process as accurately and precisely as possible. It is not scientific merely to make vague assertions, such as, "our bodies are made of the same stuff as the earth is," or "rain falls and waters our crops", because these claims are prey to ambiguity.
- Very few religious texts actually aim to provide detailed knowledge about the world in the way that science or archaeology do. The vast majority of statements from the Text, and most other religious texts, are religious messages to followers, moral rules, or statements aimed at converting heathens.
- Even if some of the claims of "foreknowledge" were true, there are a vastly greater number of statements in the Text with no basis whatsoever in fact. Even if every one of the claims presented here were correct (which they manifestly are not), they would still be vastly outnumbered by the absurdities.
- It's also interesting that (when the Text is correct) discoveries are very rarely "predicted" by the Text until after the discovery has been independently made. One would imagine that a book so full of foreknowledge would be used to predict future discoveries, while it appears that the Text can only "predict" current knowledge.