Scientific knowledge versus spiritual knowledge

[God of Mr. Hanky]

I think what Thumpy may be saying is that no "knowledge" which isn't science is valid, therefore there's no point in categorizing knowledge at all. This would not change the nature of scientific knowledge, but it may fight the special pleading from those who insist they have other forms of "knowledge". But it wouldn't stop theists from muddling any linguistic term, therefore if scientists stopped qualifying their "knowledge" as "scientific", then it would be that much harder to sort out the corruption of it by theists.

Not sure I agree with this. Yes you want to take the teeth out of the theist arguments, I simply don't think coddling them by allowing them all claims are equal is the way to do it. It still remains that you only have evidence when you can test an falsify it and have it confirmed by peer review. That is the only thing that allows us knowledge.


Yes I have knowledge that in the past humans once claimed Thor existed. But Thor still is not a scientific demonstration of knowledge of lightening in the scientific explanation.

I don't see how knowledge of opinions constitutes the same Empirical data based tested and falsified.

I repeatedly have and will again here, on top of saying Dawkins "God Delusion" gives us a scientific explanation as to why humans have flawed perceptions, Victor Stenger's "God The Failed Hypothesis" and " The New Atheism" and even Hawking "A god is not required" are all science based statements.  There really is no splitting the baby as some want there to be. 

Religion is like pretending a kaleidoscope can replace a telescope. All religions try this and all religions fail trying it.

I was only guessing what that was supposed to mean, and while my best guess is something I've considered before, I don't think it would work for the same reasons. Also, some knowledge may not be empirical - as you mentioned, other people's opinions (not unless they were publicly stated and recorded).