Michael
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Originally Posted by lightgigantic
not necessarily
even in terms of mundane teaching, knowledge is broken up into three categories - theory, practice and values.
Theory and to a lesser extent practice are 'external' to the knower, whereas values, while built on standards of theory and practice, is virtually completely internal (meaning that learning values involves drawing an understanding from one's self/experience etc)
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We accept that everyone builds on something - even at the most basic just the notion of "language" or "writing". BUT, the fact is, the teacher/philosopher builds up by their own volition. They do the intellectual work.
but what is the value of that "work" except for a labour of love?
For instance if the issue is about who can travel the fastest, is it about who can travel the fastest or who did the most work (ie made the most mistakes or barked up the wrong trees)?
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Originally Posted by lightgigantic
certainly, but the values that they come to know would be completely internal
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Well then, the teacher/philosopher is like a God in this sense.
Don't you agree.
God puts information into the head of the Prophet, the Prophet then (perhaps) learns something based on this information. That's pretty much exactly what teachers do with their students. (I am assuming by "internalizing" you are refurring to learning)
By values being internalized I mean that the application of the "knowledge" comes from a person's sense of good/bad - like for instance the values that surround the usage of nuclear energy are quite distinct and individual compared to the knowledge of how to manufacture nuclear energy.
Similarly the values that surround the knowledge of god find different expressions (hence we have classes of theists and atheists and everything else in between)
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Originally Posted by lightgigantic
(and also the callibre of their value based knowledge is probably what qualifies them for prophethood)
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This we have no way of knowing.
let me rephrase this, in light of elaborating on what is meant by values being internalized.
Because a prophet by necessity sees the absolute goodness of god, they become a transparent medium to that goodness - in other words their value based knowledge is perfect since they can determine the correct and incorrect application of knowledge of god (hence reformations in religious traditions are often heralded by a 'prophet')
It seems IMHO that many of Prophets of various God were idiots
lol - thats a value statement (which means its rides a body of practice and theory)
- constantly messing things up and needing God to learn-them-a-lesson now and again. I believe that even Mohammad was tricked by Satan into "accidentally" thinking that their were 3 Goddesses. Isn't that the whole point in Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses?
I am no expert in Islam
Anyway, I have asked many people here on many many occasions what was something novel and enlightening that their Prophet professed - only to be either verbally assaulted for daring to even ask such a question or told absolutley noting at all.
then such persons have no philosophical understanding - hence my earlier reference that religion without philosophy becomes fanaticism
All of which have left me with the impression that people think their Prophets are filled with wisdom but when pressed they soon realize that such is not the case. In either case, I stated that we will assume that the message is worthwhile.
Either way, that is an assumption on you rpart and one we can not determine. BUT, it is NOT an assumption that Prophets receive their revelations from their God. They say so themselves.
if you analyze a group of persons who make the claim that god reveals something to them, ranging from a saintly person to the guy living in a cardboard box down the street, you can place them at different levels by examining the mettle of their values based knowledge (aka - philosophy)
So on the one hand we have a person that develops and advances information of their own volition and on the other we have a person who is told to record their information.
It seems to me that a Philosopher/Teacher is more like a God and a Prophet is akin to their scribe.
If the king says "fetch me a glass of water" and if the scribe says "fetch the king a glass of water" there is no distinction for the person who follows either of those two instructions (there is however the case of the scribe saying "fetch me a glass of water")
