I’m mostly in agreement with you here gobear. I certainly didn’t get out of the OP what Shayna and jinwicked did. I think I pretty much understood what it was you were aiming at. However, I reread the OP with the express intent of trying to see things through their eyes. Here’s what I read:
Your first point as I understood it was that religion has had, and still has, a wide reaching affect on history.
Your second point as I understood it was that religion broadens and deepends the appreciation for art and literature since it’s a source for much of the great works.
Your third point condemned deliberate ignorance without precisely indicating what you considered “deliberate ignorance” to be. You do specify anti-religious bigotry as an unworthy reason to avoid a very important aspect of human history and culture but this could be taken a number of different ways. It could mean a person who feels that religion is quackery and therefore takes a perverse pride in not knowing anything about it. It could also mean a person who is a religious bigot who simply has no interest in learning about religion, though he wouldn’t avoid an opportunity to learn about it if it came up. The keyword here is “deliberate”. It isn’t clear in this context if it means “goes out of their way to avoid learning for a specious reason” or if it means “has made a conscious decision that other things are more important and therefore neglects this area”.
The sentence which comes closest to illuminating your point is your opening one:
This sentence conveys your feelings about “Deliberate militant ignorance” pretty clearly yet still falls short in explaining exactly what form of “deliberate” you’re talking about. The two quotes pulled from the other thread don’t help much here either. Without clarification it’s difficult to know exactly what form of “deliberate ignorance” these two meant. I assumed that the quotes were a catalyst for your thought processes regarding prideful ignorance and not that you were specifically accusing them of such.
Having said all of that, my statement regarding the evolution of discussions is a statement in your defense. You have clarified your position repeatedly since then and yet you continue to be attacked for reasons which have nothing to do with your (now clear) position. At the same time the only thing that Shayna is “guilty” of IMO is continuing to berate you for positions which you obviously don’t hold, NOT because she’s defending ignorance.
The definition of ‘God’ varies completely. Some would even say Buddhists believe in a ‘God’, as ki is sometimes interpreted to be. God isn’t necessarily a deity, in that case. In that sense, you could be an atheist and still believe in ‘God’. Just not in deity form. Once again, it’s generally considered wise to research something before you reach a conclusion. This board is for fighting ignorance, last time I checked. And, even if you have reached a conclusion, it’s pretty logical to know something about the subject you’re spewing about. Regardless of the references made by gobear those points stand. Unless someone disagrees with that :dubious:.
I don’t see what use it is to understand, then, because the problem with religion is that it is tangled up with motivations as well. Understanding the memetics of religion is one thing, understanding religious people’s motivations is another, and understanding the history of varied relgions and when the practices came about and in response to what… won’t amount to a hill of beans.
I am not proud of my ignorance, but I am surely not ashamed of it. I am not apathetic about religion, I think it is largely a force that works against the betterment of man, but of course, “the betterment of man” is my own idea and religions have their own versions of what a better man should be. Here is where the problem starts, and that problem’s manifestation is in this “deliberate ignorance”.
It isn’t a matter of committing facts to memory. That’s trivial. Religion has had, and continues to have, an incredible impact on the world. But I’ve not seen a realistic reason for me to know anything more about it than I do, which isn’t much. Knowledge for the sake of knowledge is great, but that requires a personal interest in the subjects and relgion doesn’t even do that for me.
There have been some great examples in this thread but I think the analogy to politics is most appropriate. Polycarp wishes us to consider that we can’t make informed choices on certain matters if we don’t have the background, and while that is obvious, it begs the question of why those are the important choices.
To piss and moan over methodism versus catholicism is to miss my larger picture which is that I see no reason to educate myself on topics that are largely ridiculous.
For example, I enjoy philosophy. It is like a little hobby for me to read philosophy all the time. I have intentionally and willfully avoided reading many earlier philosophers. Who gives a fuck about whether so-and-so thought there were only four elements in nature? Not me. Knowing that will only help me in discussions that surround it. But neither do I need to know every fucking nuance of the idea to reject it outright. My reasons for rejecting it do not deal with the minutiae, so what is there to gain by knowing the minutiae?
I am apathetic as a personal matter about depth of knowledge in things I see as irrelevent (which is why I find them irrelevant, mainly), but that does not forbid me from taking a stand against what I have rejected, for I rejected it for a reason, and if that reason satisfied me I should feel comfortable running with it.
With that said, I’ll tackle the OP (late in the thread that it is).
A. Religion is a powerful force in human history and culture.
Of course. And yet knowing the details of the religion and its history is not a guaranteed way to understand why the fuck some faction or another is still doing these things. I am lost at the beginning when it comes to religion and how it motivates people. I think it is a little silly to suppose I’ll come to any deeper understanding by tossing facts at me, especially when I’ll be reading those facts with a very specific bias at the outset.
B. Religion illuminates facets of other cultural works.
That’s really great. But my dislike of religion in general is likely to translate to dislike of inspired work, as well. I have a morbid fascination with the lengths religion has driven people, but I don’t suppose being able to talk about art works is going to help me at all. Nonetheless, this does not remove my ability to comment on culture or cultural works. Nor does it make me vile to do so.
C. Deliberate ignorance is wicked.
No, because the collection of facts does not create understanding. Deliberate ignorance is the intentional disregarding of facts not obviously necessary to create understanding. And the level of understanding one needs, desires, or hopes to achieve are also not a function of facts. The library is no closer to “understanding” social activity from the perspective of relgion than any atheist, in my opinion, because they are lacking the most important piece of information and the rest is garbage. Deliberate ignorance is a state of confidence that the necessary facts are in hand. A debate over this will reveal whether that confidence is illusory or not. But it is not a self-evident truth, at any rate, that knowing the symbolism on the fucking pope’s hat is going to help me one bit understand religiously-motivated gay bashing in urban centers. When that is demonstrated, the honest man will make an effort to amend their ignorance; until that time, I am not sure this OP has had any affect on me.
My axiom is that all knowledge is useful, all knowledge is good, and no knowledge is ever wasted.
I disagree. Knowledge is an activity, not a series of pebbles one collects. And that activity is guided, as with anything, by a persons explicit or implicit ideas about personal interaction and moral structure. And what one person considers important is a matter of debate. But the equivocation of “intentional ignorance” with a lack of worth is as sloppy as anything else I come across in the pursuit of knowledge.
Read your own quote again. Snakes do not always symbolize the devil in any given story because as you said, “snakes are scary.” I took your comment to be an allusion to Adam and Eve, a relgious story in which the Satanic symbolism of the snake is crucial to its meaning. I apologize for thinking you cleverer than you apparently are.
You wrote " Who would you rather have in charge of the world – Marley23 or Jack T. Chick? Is ignorant atheism a “good thing”? No, but it’s hardly the evil promulgated by His4Ever." You are the one used them as an example of “religion,” not me.
That’s nice, but you show no evidence of any such learning in your post, which is all I have to go by.
[quote]
You know absolutely dick about my opinions, my stance, and my knowledge of religion, yet you feel free to assail me regardless.
[quote]
Read your first post in this thread–you insulted me and attacked me personally for no reason, completely unprovoked, so you can forget about any apologies when it is you who should apologize for being a jerk.
For the record, Grim_Beaker, while I appreciate your attempts to find middle ground and clarity amidst this mish-mash of a thread, I would like to implore you, too, to please not misrepresent me. I haven’t addressed gobear since page 1 of this thread, except above to ask him to stop misrepresenting me, as well. Since then I have responded to 2 posters who addressed me personally, for the purpose of clarifying my position, and then above, I attempted to encapsulate what I saw to be the various arguments made against the quotes that inspired this thread. Absolutely none of that constitutes berating, LET ALONE for positions he doesn’t hold – I have NO CLUE where you came up with that. I especially resent the use of the word, “continuing”. I’ve done nothing of the sort and I deeply resent the assertion.
First, read the OP again. The title is “Ignorant atheism is as vile as ignorant fundamentalism”–the OP is addressed to ideas, not people. In the first line, I wrote “Just to be clear, I’m NOT pitting individuals, but an idea” so your statement that I said “anyone who doesn’t learn about religion on purpose is ‘vile’ and ‘wicked’” is a lie. I’m not condemning any person in the OP, and I REALLY resent your continuing dishonesty on that score. Ditto for Quixotic78.
Ideas, not people, get it straight.
Second,
Another lie. You wrote
In the post to which you were responding, I used the pronoun “you”; in retrospect, I should have used “one” to avoid such problems. It was intended to be the general “you,” not “you, Shayna” although that’s what it became after you wrote your response and made it a personal fight.
In any event, the context of the original thread is irrelevant because I was objecting to the specific content of Marley23’s sentence, “I didn’t know about the origins of Pentecost, but then, I’m an atheist and I sometimes make a point of not knowing stuff like that.” I objected to the idea that one should make a point of not knowing something because it offends one’s worldview. It’s one thing not to care about religion, it’s one thing not to make any time for religion, but to make it a point not to learn about religion because it offends one’s worldview is, IMO, as intolerant as any fundie talking about evolution.
Who said anything about snakes always symbolizing the Devil? I was, upon further re-read, a little ambiguous with: “This applies to any story, from a Mother Goose story to Rudyard Kipling to what have you.” So let me rephrase: the snake does not always symbolize the Devil (nor did I intend to claim such, although I could see how such an interpretation could be reached. My bad.). However, if often can symbolize the Devil (and, by extension, evil in general) – be it in Rudyard Kipling, a Mother Goose rhyme, or whatever. However, if a person is totally unaware of the Devil-Snake connection, said person can still realize that snakes are not a Good Thing. Therefore, you’re generally going to get the gist of a snake story even if you’ve lived your life blissfully unaware of anything even remotely Christian.
**
You assumed, and you assumed wrong. Own up to it already.
**
You could not possibly be this dense. I don’t know how to explain myself any clearer, so I’ll just quote my earlier response (complete with advice you should truly take to heart):
I mean, seriously. Go back and reread what I originally wrote, and then convince me how I help up the Two Evils as representatives of religion.
**
You’re right. Next time, I’ll give a list of esoteric, totally irrelevant knowledge, just to show how big my dick is and how s-m-r-t I am. Maybe something about the Ryoanji Temple, or the Blue Mosque of Isfahan. :rolleyes:
As long as you’re conjecturing based on absolutely nothing, would you care to guess how much I know about business ethics, based on the content of my posts? How about soccer? I didn’t say anything about soccer, ergo, you can obviously conclude that I know dick about soccer, yeah? Oooh, ooh, and French! I didn’t say anything in French, either. As I have failed to show evidence of any such learning, I am clearly ignorant of these fields of knowledge, yes?
Idiot.
I did read my first post in this thread. Let’s see… I call you “fucking arrogant,” but it’s a response to the attitude you espoused in your OP (particularly, calling me “vile.”) Hence, it is hardly “completely unprovoked.” Similarly with calling you a “smug bastard.” Oh, the humanity! For someone who bathes in vituperativeness, you’ve got awfully thin skin.
You claim that your OP is addressed at ideas, yet you cite two people – presumably individuals who (in your opinion) hold this idea. You can claim all you want that you’re not condemning anyone in the OP, but I have yet to see you admit that the two individuals in the OP are less-than-perfect examples of adherents to “militant ignorance.” Even if you were to offer such a retraction, you clearly have accused me --no longer just a vague idea, but now a specific person – of exhibiting the behavior in the OP (comparing me to His4Ever and whatnot). How am I to be accused of “continuing dishonesty” when I’m defending myself from a charge you’re levelling directly against me? As in, this is no longer in the intangible, “I’m talking about ideas and not people” phase. You accused ME of militant ignorance, so how am I confusing your message? You’re no longer simply pitting an idea; you’ve moved on to attacking ME. So your backpedalling, crybaby, “Stop misrepresenting what I said because I’m not talking about any one person” is just so much bullshit.
gobear, what’s the matter with you? Seriously. Ordinarily I would rank you amongst the smartest of the smart on these message boards. But you’ve managed to mangle your intent, trip over your own feet and completely mis-read and/or misinterpret numerous posts in this thread. I don’t get it. Honestly I don’t.
You are being disingenuous in the worst possible way. You misattribute sentiments or statements to me that cause other posters to think I’ve said things I never said. And now you come back with the most head-scratching reply thus far.
To assert that one can object to the “idea” that willful ignorance is vile while not attributing that to people who subscribe to same is utterly and patently ridiculous. One does not exist without the other. The concept of willful ignorance is meaningless if the subject matter who hold it – people – are removed from the equation. It matters not which individual people, be they Marley23, Nichol_Storm or me. Even removing the “individuals”, we’re still left with a premise put forth by you that people who choose to remail willfully ignorant, especially [on a subject] as important as religion, according to your thread title, are vile, and, according to point C of your OP, wicked.
That is what the TITLE of YOUR OP says. That is what YOUR OP says within it. I am not making stuff up out of whole cloth, nor am I twisting words to mean something you didn’t intend. I’m merely regurgitating your own words right back at you.
Either stand behind them or shut the fuck up!
Additionally, you admit to a lack of clarity in the use of the word “you” when you meant, “one,” then, when I respond that I, personally, don’t fit the criteria you ascribe to me, you misrepresent that I’ve taken your entire thread as a “personal attack” and expect that shit to fly? ON WHAT PLANET? I clarified that I do not, personally, fit into the category of people who hold the “ideas” you are so offended by. How the hell you twist that around to taking your thread as a personal attack overall, I’ll never know, but it’s WRONG.
Go have some tea. Perhaps a relaxing hot cup and a bath will give you a bit more clarity when reading people’s replies to you here.
I apologize if you feel that I’ve misrepresented you. Truly, that wasn’t my intent. While it’s true that your post on page 2 wasn’t addressed to gobear, from my perspective, it seemed that your last statement in that post reiterated your stance. The sentence I’m referring to is (bolding mine):
I felt that this passage implied that you believe gobear was condemning the posters in question for “deliberate ignorance”. To me it sounded like you thought gobear was giving them the “rough side o’his tongue” for a choice based on ignorance. Since gobear had clarified his OP by the time you posted this it seemed to me like your stance hadn’t changed.
I reviewed the posts in this thread carefully to see if I missed something (perfectly possible, it’s happened before). These two posts were made prior to gobear clarifying his position:
Understandable since the OP could have been taken a few different ways. gobear next followed up with a post which states:
At this point I believe he is being sufficiently clear. He’s focusing on pride in ignorance and a refusal to learn even when a prime opportunity presents itself. Your next post included:
As I read it you’re focusing on the fact that you’re not interested in certain fields. You then state that you feel that gobear is out of line by presuming that his personal interests should be shared by everyone. At this point gobear has already clarified what he meant in the OP yet this post doesn’t reflect an acknowledgement of that clarification. gobear’s next post says:
Here, he acknowledges that it’s ok if you have no interest in physics as long as you (or anybody) doesn’t adopt a superior attitude based on that lack of knowledge. He explicitly states that it’s pride in not going that has him upset. Now, having said that, I would also like to add that some of the implied meanings in this post (i.e. that you were acting superior to ‘nerds’, or that you were pridefully ignorant) weren’t warranted. Your next post:
Here, once again, you’re taking gobear to task for the (as you perceived it) content of his OP, NOT his clarified stance. gobear then accuses you (unjustifiably IMO) of continuing to defend ignorance with this line:
You respond with (in part):
Which, of course, he isn’t questioning (people’s right to have varying interests that is). I suppose I could continue but his post is long enough, and as my friends tell me, I can occasionally be longwinded.
I sincerely apologize if I’ve offended here. I had no intent to misrepresent your (or anyone else’s) views. I have no desire to upset posters here and as it seems my comments are unwelcome from both sides I shall bow out of this thread. While an amicable end to this thread seems unlikely hopefully each side will at least see how neither side is really deserving of the venom (as I see it anyway).
Grim, I appreciate the effort you went to to cut and paste all the posts that led you to the conclusion you drew. I will make my dissent simple, as I’m simply too pressed for time to go into any detail (nor do I really feel it is necessary or useful). Here’s the bottom line rebuttal: The OP doesn’t “go away” just because the OPer, in a later post, says he meant his OP to include other things as well. Your contention that gobear’s subsequent posts actually “clarified” his OP sufficiently is erroneous. That’s what it boils down to. Thanks for the apology, though. It’s heartily accepted.
Actually, it’s pretty clear that the equation of snakes with “not a Good Thing” is a part of cultural stuff that’s significantly rooted in religion-based bias; it’s hardly an intrinsic belief. (I justify this position by pointing out that I have a python in my living room, and if I thought that it was perfectly obvious that snakes were Not A Good Thing, that would probably not be the case. Besides, the species of snake in question is considered sacred in West Africa; that’s setting aside the broad variety of cultures that have revered various serpents over the course of history.)
I think using the example of a snake as intrinsically and obviously bad without its cultural context is . . . fairly poor support, really, for the lack of relevance of religious influences. Which is tangential to gobear’s original point, but strikes me as being worth mentioning.
Look, I am not condemning people for not being interested in subjects, including religion, that fail to interest them.
Rather, what I was doing was suggesting two things:
It is wrong to hold and express an opinion on the views of another based on a failure to understand what that other is saying. If you find the Magical Sky Pixie and the Divine Weasel to be laughable superstitions, fine; so do I. But they don’t describe the God that I believe in – so don’t demean my beliefs by assuming they do.
Because a large number of people do found their attitudes towards controversial issues of our day on their religious beliefs, it’s important, in dealing with such issues, to be aware of what those beliefs are. And nearly everyone is going to need to deal with such issues at one time or another. IIRC, Jinwicked for example, chose that name because some of the things she likes are characterized as “wicked” by the Mrs. Grundies of the world. But what if Mrs. Grundy and her cohorts elect the majority of the legislature? Is it not wise to be able to address the distinction between private decision and public policy before it gets to the stage where Mrs. Grundy’s outlawing whatever jinwicked’s private “wickedness” may be?
Loose ends: [ul][li]“Feralwilliamesque” was my coinage for “behaving as our friend Wildest Bill would.” [/li]With the explicit caveat that I do not want it to be a hijack to say this, His4Ever is behaving in a manner consonant with her belief system, and is not intentionally hateful nor hypocritical. To be sure, the manner in which she attempts to put forth her views certainly appears to be that way to most people, and I’ve encouraged her to explore other ways of expressing them. If anyone is truly interested, I will deal with this privately or in another thread. But, much as I loathe some of her views and the hurt she causes others in expressing them, I do have to defend her from charges of hatefulness or hypocrisy – in her own worldview, she is acting from the finest of motives, and not inconsistently.[/ul]
Polycarp 1. It is wrong to hold and express an opinion on the views of another based on a failure to understand what that other is saying. If you find the Magical Sky Pixie and the Divine Weasel to be laughable superstitions, fine; so do I. But they don’t describe the God that I believe in – so don’t demean my beliefs by assuming they do.
This is the problem I have: that I can’t dismiss what you believe in until I know it. I think this is incorrect. I do not grant beliefs any more legitimacy because there is more to know about them than might appear, nor do I consider that I must entertain certain ideas in order to reach an understanding well enough to reject something. My disinterest in religion is active. From what I have seen and know, it warrants no further investigation. Saying you’ve got more fleshed out ideas than “magical sky pixies” is not going to change that: first I need to know why I should even consider the general topic again, nevermind specifics.
I would think it is within your reach to discard Discordianism without ever having met one in person, for example, or reading the Principia, or making a really good metaphysical joke about how God is a crazy woman. And though I can say the statement “Polycarp is not informed about Discordianism” is true, the statement “So he shouldn’t discard it so offhandedly” is not. (Of course, I have no idea what you know about this topic, it is just illustrative. Five tons of flax, good sir.)
I get the feeling it is like people are demanding exclusive treatment, as if it wasn’t fair to someone’s beliefs that they could be discarded based on so little information. But the problem I face is: any time I started to gain any more information I was struck by the uselessness of doing so.
I personally don’t take the “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” line of thought, it is not your job to demonstrate the existence of god or whatever. But neither is it my duty to go to lengths to inform myself of everything before I reject it; that job is a magnitude more impossible than knowing everything I actually want to know and/or have persona reasons to.
If that is unsatisfying because you feel I have not addressed your beliefs specifically in my rejection, and so leaves open questions, then we may ask many of them. Should that show me the problem, I will then be more than happy to address those concerns and inform myself more. But I don’t just willy-nilly learn about things because other people think they’re important.
True, the Pentagon is constructed with steel, wood, and stone. True, there could be a situation where understanding such construction will help me understand the pentagon better. I still hate war. No?
ErisLover, well put. I have no desire to learn in great detail about the Nazi party, but I can tell you that what I do know about them makes the remaining information irrelevant.
I can also say that I absolutely love music. I don’t play an instrument, and I can no longer read music, but I don’t love music any less.
From Polycarp:
It is wrong to hold and express an opinion on the views of another based on a failure to understand what that other is saying.
Failure to know a subject in great detail does not mean a person can’t understand the subject well enough to make an evaluation that is sound.
I realize that this has gone a bit off track from what Gobear originally posted, but I think it’s still relevant to the direction the thread has taken.
ErisLover, well put. I have no desire to learn in great detail about the Nazi party, but I can tell you that what I do know about them makes the remaining information irrelevant.
I should have added that it makes the remaining information irrelevant to my decision to like or hate the Nazi party. The rest of it is obviously relevant in the historical sense.
I haven’t read this whole thread yet, but I wanted to interject that it’s easy to confuse pride in your ignorance on a particular subject with pride in never having lent it enough weight to bother.
For example, I have no idea who the characters on Will and Grace are. You could say that, in a way, I’m proud of this. Proud that there are trivial facts that I don’t know? No, that’s irrelevant. I’m proud that I don’t tend to bother with TV, and my ignorance of this mega-popular show reflects that. So, in a sense, I deliberately avoid learning about Will and Grace, and I might even be inclined to state it that way for effect, but if I say that, the message I’m sending is “I am completely uninterested in TV.”
I suspect many atheists are this way about religion. They started out apathetic about religion, and so never learned about it. Then slowly they realized that their ignorance itself conveys a message about their lack of interest in religion, and now they practice willful ignorance in order to continue sending that same message.
Therein lies the crux of the problem: I maintain that ideas can be criticized divorced from the people who hold them, and you say that they cannot. So we find ourselves at an impasse because I will not back down when I believe I am right.
No, the OP title criticizes the idea–ignorance versus ignorant people. That you keep putting words into my mouth and maintaining that I am attacking people when I expressly said I am not is annoying, to put it mildly.
[Originally posted by Quixotic78*
Ah, the “you think you’re better’n me” ploy. Sorry you feel threatened, dude, but my post was not to show how big my dick is, but to show some of the buildings and creations religion has inspired. And “esoteric” is a highly subjective term. I lived in Korea during the 90s and spent a lot of time traveling in Northeast Asia, especially Japan, so Kyoto is as familiar and nonesoteric to me as McDonald’s is to you. I’ve spent an afternoon on the Ryoanji Temple porch, watching snow fall on rocks, and found it to be a singularly intense experience. In fact, I’ve been to every place I mentioned in that post except for the Blue Mosque, and I’ll go there one of these days (assuming our troops don’t attack Iran and destroy it).
While I agree with your point Re: my “wickedness,” I think, I’m not really sure what it has to do with this discussion. Completely irrelevant, but just to clarify – my name is an exercise in not judging books by their cover. There are a lot of “good” people in the world that are anything but, and I hate people that makes assumptions based on labels and appearances. I consider myself to be a very Good person. My malleable image and dark name are just tools for gently nudging people to question their preconceptions. Most of my “wickedness” is just tongue-in-cheek and done for the sake of poking fun at myself and making jokes. I’ll refrain from any further hijack, but I didn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea about me in this already convoluted context. If you want to know more about my name, you’re welcome to write me privately.
I largely agree with Shayna, but if we’re guilty of misinterpreting the OP, then he’s equally guilty of being unclear about what exactly it is that upsets him. I’m rather offended that he seems to think that religion is any more necessary a field of study than any other – but that’s an artifact of my own personal beliefs and biases. However, I’m not particularly pleased with the name-dropping and “look what all I know and have done” being exhibited by gobear in this thread, which is giving me a serious “pompous ass” vibe. In general I’ve enjoyed his posts elsewhere, as I have yours Poly (though you haven’t written anything that ever offended me, to my knowledge) so I’m just inclined to resign that we are not going to be able to find an agreement here and drop the whole issue, as far as interjecting any more of my POV.