Essay Example on Religious Knowledge Systems

Religious knowledge systems play a significant role in the development of knowledge regarding culture and also promotes understanding of the other ways of knowing. Through their different creeds and belief system religious knowledge systems promote the connection and understanding as well as the individual and collective perception of the world.

Does knowledge rely on opinion?

Knowledge is objective while opinions are subjective. Knowledge usually is based on what exists despite our beliefs and evaluations, while opinions are subjective in that what exists is because of our beliefs and evaluations. Taking an example of a lion is carnivorous. This is knowledge that cannot be changed as a lion can never feed on herbs as it is a carnivorous animal. One may have an opinion that lions should be tamed to be domestic animal. This opinion is wrong and is not a fact, it is just subjective because the person loves lion and thinks they would be fit to keep as pets at home. With the knowledge that traffic lights are meant to control movement of people and car in the city, one would come up with an opinion that they are annoying as they are time consuming but this opinion can never be credible knowledge as traffic lights knowledge is robust.Knowledge can never rely on opinion because opinions can be right or wrong but knowledge especially knowledge that is factual not the skills that we learn is not prone to any changes of being right or wrong.

Consensus and disagreement have a role in creating robust knowledge. The personal knowledge we have usually is: what we believe is what we know and is right but not everyone will agree we are right. According to personal knowledge I know that homosexuality is a bad act that cannot be agreed upon and in my country it is against the laws. Even though people still engage in homosexuality and no act is taken against them because knowledge that people share is that there is freedom to love whoever you want. Since most of the people do not agree with homosexuality from the perspective of personal knowledge, it makes that robust knowledge that homosexuality is wrong. Why? Because the disagreements on this are not upheldand it is still a law that it is not accepted. Homosexuality is not right is knowledge that is robust as you may face problems such as isolation from society if you are homosexual. The consensus on homosexuality makes it robust knowledge

All knowledge that we learn from science or history is not robust as there are facts that disagree with it. This facts may change the knowledge that we have learnt to make it robust. In history for example, we learn that man has slowly evolved to what we are today, from baboons. How true is this? This has an element of illegitimacy because over the years we know that man was created by God and did not evolve from a four-legged creature to a human. So we can say that the theory of man evolving is not robust knowledge as it has faced disagreement and cannot stand the criticism that man was created by God. It thus becomes robust knowledge that man was created and did not evolve from a simple form of life (according to natural science). Knowledge becomes robust based on the agreements or disagreements using strong facts that have much sense to change the nature of knowledge, to make it robust or not.

In conclusion, robust knowledge require both disagreement and consensus to create more credible and effective knowledge that promotes its application. Robust knowledge requires disagreement because it encourage the establishment of the knowledge credibility. Disagreeing with robust knowledge results in the establishment of a consensus amongst researchers which help establish the acceptability of disagreement of knowledge. Therefore, robust knowledge requires both disagreement and consensus to establish its credibility and applicability by a high number of people.

Real life situation: Female anopheles mosquito hosts malaria parasites which infect human beings with malaria.

Knowledge Question: To What extent language shapes perception in the realm of Natural World?

Real life situation refer to the knowledge that has been acquired from being in a particular situation or personal experience. For instance, the knowledge that female anopheles mosquito causes malaria is robust knowledge because it has been scientifically proved that only the female anopheles mosquito carry the malaria parasite.

Works Cited

Bergeron, Liz, and Leslie Rogers. "Teaching the theory of knowledge course in IB world schools." (2015).

Cole, David R., et al. IB programme: Theory of knowledge (TOK): Exploring learning outcomes, benefits, and perceptions. 2014.

Crompton, Peter D., et al. "Malaria immunity in man and mosquito: insights into unsolved mysteries of a deadly infectious disease." Annual review of immunology 32 (2014): 157-187.

Clarke, Chris. Ways of knowing: Science and mysticism today. Andrews UK Limited, 2013.

Davis, Eboni. "Robust Knowledge Requires Both Consensus and Disagreement?" Medium, 21 Sept. 2017, medium.com/@davis53424/robust-knowledge-requires-both-consensus-and-disagreement-e105ae578d8f .

Joshi, Parag. "Argumentation in Democratic Education: The Crucial Role of Values." Theory Into Practice 55, no. 4 (2016): 279-286.