Knowledge vs Belief.

Still pondering over the recent attempt at debating with paleos, I've decided to hone in on another of their flawed arguments. One guy countered something I said by writing "the trouble with vegans, is they don't think, they believe".. Now putting aside that the guy who wrote this must surely have been thinking none too straight himself, (to the best of my knowledge, thought is a clear necessity for belief), what he really meant to say was that rather than rely on knowledge, we tend more toward belief, trust and faith.

Now.. there's no way that I will be denying this is very much true for myself, I do go very much on belief. Ethics and morality are about belief and opinion.. I acknowledge any views I may have on nutritional science, are purely based on belief and personal experience.

But what I further wish to underline, is that the vast majority of the paleos out there that talk of knowledge, and of concrete fact, are very much themselves in denial of their own beliefs. Knowledge requires first hand experience of something. Thus, if I believe I know something, and tell you it, you will not then also know it.. No matter how much you trust me, there will always be the chance that I myself am either misinformed, not reporting the truth in it's entirety, exaggerating or for whatever reason, outright lieing.

Many Paleos claim to know how paleo man ate. As if they themselves have traveled backward in a time machine, and witnessed first hand. As if they themselves have been studying fossils, been on archeological digs, seen remnants of foods from a time period that they themselves have personally carbon dated to be in the period they believe it to be.

Indeed, I recall some years ago, how a discovery of some cave drawings in South Africa, were tested by a group of scientists.. carbon dating proved the drawings to be older than any other hithertil discovered cave paintings.. In fact so old, that it meant rethinking the whole history of the dawn of humankind. There was much furrour within the scientific community, but as the drawings gained more publicity, a little old lady of some 80 years old odd, stepped forth from the masses, and claimed she herself had drawn the cave paintings as a young girl.. Further investigation proved that this was infact fact.

Despite being widly accepted as fact, evolution theory is itself very much that.. THEORY. There are so many missing links and unanswered questions. I'm not trying to say I'm a creationist, far from it. I sit on the fence as it were, and blatantly claim no knowledge. Sure, I have been known to voice my opinion that the garden of Eden may once have existed, and that fruit was (and still is) our one true fair. But I don't know this is true. For all I know, we may all have been genetically engineered by aliens. Or one person once hypothesized that for all we know, the whole universe could have been created at 2pm in the afternoon on April the 1st 1911.. Stars, planets, life, plants, animals, people with fully formed memories of lives they never had and experiences never experienced.. The whole darned kaboodle. (happy 100 years today!).. Some might even think the universe was sneezed out of the mouth of a giant green dragon, (and wait fearfully for the coming of the great white hanky!).

Some great logical reasoning here.. enjoy!
Sure I'm curious to know the truth of the origins of existance.. but beyond curiousity there is little else. I believe with veganism, it matters not.

But back to the Belief vs Knowledge. Many people claim they know things they really only believe. People quote nutritional science as though it were completely undisputed fact. But the problem with nutritional science, is that it is as yet far from being complete. There are clearly conflicting theories out there, and we're liable to claim the one that suits us best as fact. Which is why I try and steer clear of nutritional science. It being still in it's infancy, it's highly unreliable. And yet the paleos are mostly fully blind to this, to them, it is as if they themselves know.

Sure, they're not the only ones that have a tendency to claim knowledge when it is only belief that is present. Richard, the owner of the blog I gave my tuppence worth on, has agreed to hold a video'ed debate with DurianRider Harley, the Low Fat Raw Vegan. Both are likely equally certain of themselves that they have knowledge and that the other is misguided. Of course, I'm much more inclined toward Harleys general thinking than Richards, but I'll not be kidding anyone in claiming knowledge either way. It'll surely be an interesting debate, though I seriously doubt that either party will be swayed. - The last rumour I heard was that it would take place on the 7th of April, in just 6 days time. I'm sure when and if a date is finally fixed, news will spread rapidly.

To me, the whole vegan issue cannot be debated through incomplete science, or dodgy history, as both sides will purely be expressing their opposing opinions based solely on beliefs. It is purely an ethical issue. It matters not one iota to me if cavemen ate meat, or even if meat eating helped to develop the brain. The issue now, currently, is that we have an awareness of the suffering of others, and should do our best to help minimise or avoid it.

History will always be disputable, so I tend to look to the future and envision a harmonious world, at peace with itself, with a live and let live balance reigning supreme.