Can any question be made on-topic by adding "according to Judaism"? [duplicate]

Question

Suppose a question is off-topic because it is not about Judaism; can it simply be made on topic by adding in a Jewish motivation, or by adding the words "according to Judaism"?

Consider this recent example:

In Judaism, if I can't prove that God exists, can I still *know* He exists?

The question originally asked:

If I can't prove that God exists, does that mean I don't know He exists?

I absolutely believe/know that God exists, but can't prove it(except through logic; which, for some reason, isn't good enough for too many people). If I can't prove it, does that mean I can't know He exists?

This was put on hold as off-topic because the question of whether you can know something without proving it is not a question about Judaism.

The title was then edited to:

In Judaism, if I can't prove that God exists, does that mean I don't know He exists?

Then the question itself was edited to explain the Judaism motivation:

The answer is necessary in order to fulfill the mitzvah of knowing God(Anochi HaShem). If we can't prove that God exists, how can we claim to know Him? Unless the Torah considers believing to be knowing(which is a separate question in and of itself).

And then it was reopened.

So is a motivation within Judaism enough to make a question on topic? Consider the following question:

Did the Dallas Cowboys win the Super Bowl in 2018?

At first glance I think everyone would agree that it's off-topic. But what if I made the following edit:

The answer is necessary because if someone effected a marriage with this as a condition, the answer would affect whether the marriage was effective according to Jewish Law.

Is the question now on topic because the answer has potential relevance to Judaism?

If not, where do we draw the line?

What about adding the words "according to Judaism"?

In the knowledge question above, is it on-topic if it asks:

According to Judaism, can you know something without being able to prove it?

This is explicitly about Judaism, but the underlying question is still not a Judaism question. But perhaps Judaism has a unique view even on a basic factual question? For example, the question of how old the world is, or whether evolution occurred, seems to be a basic factual question, but I think the following question might be considered on-topic:

According to Judaism, how old is the world?

Or:

Is there reincarnation according to Judaism?

Whether souls get reincarnated is a purely factual question. Yet we apparently assume that Judaism would have a unique opinion on that. So where do we draw the line? If I would ask:

According to Judaism, did the Dallas Cowboys win the Super Bowl in 2018?

Is it on-topic because Judaism might have a unique opinion on this factual question? How do we know which questions Judaism has the right to an opinion on and which questions it doesn't?

Note that the examples here are just to frame the issue. This post is about the general issue, not about any specific question.

Somewhat related: The Parameters of "Jewish Life" Scope

Answer 1

I agree with Isaac's answer on the related question, in which he gives two points on which to evaluate questions like these:

Is this question expressly or implicitly motivated by a desire to understand or practice Judaism?

Is it reasonable to expect that a group of people who base their lives on Judaism would be especially able to give informed answers, due to their basing their lives on Judaism?

The earlier versions of the "knowing" question sounded more like a philosophy question; we would need to know what "know" means and the question didn't say. Adding "according to Judaism" doesn't fix that, in my opinion -- we still don't know how the question applies to Judaism. (I would have closed it as unclear because of this.)

Adding the mitzvah motivation places it within our scope. Answers can work from the mitzvah obligation "up" to the philosophy question. "Knowing" is vague and unclear, but many mitzvot have measures -- how much do you have to give to the poor, how far do you have to go in honoring your parents, and so on. It's reasonable to believe that if there is a mitzvah to know God, then there is some rabbinic understanding of what constitutes sufficient knowing.

This doesn't extend to the question about a transaction being based on the outcome of a football game, because the game is another step removed (or more). One could ask about transactions based on events, or on transactions based on events that have happened but the parties don't know the outcome yet, or about what counts as testimony or witnesses that the event happened... but the specific event is tangential and, from a Judaism perspective, irrelevant. Going back to Isaac's points, the outcome of a football game fails the second criterion.