This is a discussion about whether most believers can be considered ignorant. I answered in the affirmative and have thus used the word to apply to most believers as a direct consequence of the OP’s reference to ignorance.
Please don’t insult me. I did not claim to have collected and polled a representative sample. I only reported what I reported, from all the devout Christians available to me at this moment.
I’m afraid that I must consider the probability of your statement to be extremely low, especially given that the majority of Christians cannot even name the four Gospels, let alone regurgitate the contents of a relatively obscure passage!
Nope, statistics show that most Christians are rather ignorant of their faith. Thus we have books titled “Religious Illiteracy” that makes my point and so forth.
As an atheist, I reject the idea that religious people are, simply by the fact of being religious, by definition ignorant. In fact, in this thread, I specifically addressed my experience that the faithful will misinterpret (or sometimes, if there’s an agenda, deliberately misrepresent) the position of the typical atheist as an implicit accusation of ignorance, where no such accusation exists.
Now, that being said, there is a casual misuse of vocabulary in this thread that I believe is causing the discussion to be sidetracked into swelling hostility. To simply say, in a blanket sense, that “somebody is ignorant,” without any other qualifiers, is a very strong statement. It connotes total ignorance, top to bottom, about everything that matters. As has been discussed above, everybody’s ignorant about something; for example, the only thing I know about European soccer is that its fans roll their eyes when they hear Americans refer to it as “soccer” instead of “football.” The fact that I am ignorant about that, and no doubt about dozens of other things besides, does not, by itself, make me ignorant. The difference between common ignorance, and a larger Capital-I Ignorance, is being blithely dismissed by some posters above, and I think that’s a mistake.
Now, that being said:
This is a distinction I can get behind. I would be comfortable labeling as Ignorant somebody for whom any curiosity, any interest in learning, and any acknowledgement that one’s knowledge is not perfect and that one’s beliefs may be wrong are regarded as poisonous… and this goes for militant atheists as well as religious zealots. I reserve use of the term Ignorant (as in “you are ignorant,” full stop) for those who are not just uninformed but who are deliberately so, and who effectively wallow in their close-mindedness.
It is, for me, a specific descriptor, and to generalize beyond that is to remove any usefulness from the term, as it becomes a weapon instead of an adjective. And that doesn’t help anybody.
I don’t think any sensible person would feel the need to try to cobble together a scientific proof for beauty, great penmanship or morality. These are all matters of cultural taste. The basis of morality has been explained in terms of evolutionary biology by people such as Matt Ridley in his great book ‘The Origins of Virtue’ in terms of group survival, nurturing instincts, empathy etc. But many subjective matters aren’t best served by science which attempts at least to be objective.
Also, Mangetout, do you think that the argument you appear to be having might be somewhat down to differences between UK and US Christians? Just that I have tended to like CofE Christians I’ve met because they have not been as strict and dogmatic as they could have been - instead being rather pleasant and liberal. Are CofE worshippers generally less orthodox and less concerned with the fire and brimstone of the OT? Just a thought.
From Stephen Prothero’s Religious Literacy, I quote verbatim:
"According to recent polls, most American adults cannot name one of the four Gospels, and many high school seniors think that Sodom and Gomorrah were husband and wife. "
I must admit, I might struggle to rattle off the Decalogue by heart… I’d take a wild stab at the following.
[ol]Have no God but God[li]Do not practise idolatry[]Do not blaspheme[]Keep the Sabbath[]Honour your parents[]Do not murder[]Do not steal[]Do not commit adultery[]Do not bear false witness[]Do not covet your neighbour’s possessions[/ol][/li]
As for the Summary (attributed to Jesus but, of course, neither original nor claimed by him as such), perhaps the Christians that ambushed knows don’t go to church very often - it’s recited as part of the service in most churches I’ve been to.
Also from that text: Echoing Gallup and Castelli, researcher George Barna concludes that “the Christian body in America is immersed in a crisis of biblical illiteracy”
Nonsense. I do not buy that. These are devout, church-going Christians who were unable to come up with that so-called “summary” (which is no summary of the Ten Commandments at all in my view). I attended church every Sunday for 20 years and I’ve read the New Testament many times and I couldn’t have cited that non-summary “summary” either.
The physical laws concerning the universe suggest that something can’t come from nothing, but when you’re talking about the universe itself, the rules may be different. There are various theories like that of the ‘multiverse’ or an endless cycle of Big Bang-expansion-contraction-Big Crunch-ad infinitum which I’m not well-versed enough in to pass judgment on. But just because there is no obvious answer does not mean we should stop wondering and looking, and pin it all on an omnipotent patriarch. As someone above said - how does a god explain away the first cause? We would still need something, philosophically, to ‘cause’ god.
If you have read the New Testament many times and could not cite “Love the Lord your God with all your heart… and love your neighbour as yourself”, then you’re in the position of the Shakespeare scholar who has read Hamlet many times and is unaware there is a famous monologue beginning “To be or not to be, that is the question.” No exaggeration.
Your opinion on whether it is a summary is duly noted, and compared to the author of the Book of Common Prayer who subtitles it “Our Lord’s Summary of the Law” and appoints it optionally to be read in place of the Ten Commandments, and also to what Jesus himself says: “there is none other commandment greater than these; on these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets”.
Whatever kind of a church did you go to for twenty years?
Stop wasting our time with such nonsense. All but a tiny percentage of Americans are believers “of the book”, including Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Again, stop wasting our time.
Internet links provide the least reliable references. Go to the library and read the reference I already provided and George Gallup Jr. and Jim Castelli’s, The People’s Faith
Stop insulting me! And stop misrepresenting me. What I said is that I could not regurgitate that passage as a valid “summary” of the Ten Commandments.
Your claim about this allegedly being wide-spread knowledge is baloney. As I said, most American Christians cannot even name ONE of the four Gospels, let alone provide that non-summary “summary” of the Ten Commandments.
The fact that I am ignorant about that, and no doubt about dozens of other things besides, does not, by itself, make me ignorant. The difference between common ignorance, and a larger Capital-I Ignorance, is being blithely dismissed by some posters above, and I think that’s a mistake.