What the hell? Well, excuse me because I got off my ass and did something with my life. Am I supposed not to mention anything outside a comfortable middle American frame of reference?
That’s your problem, not mine.
I’ve said it once in this thread and I will repeat myself – I do not think it is what you are saying, I believe it is how you are going about saying it. There is something in the way you have been handling things in this thread that seem to give off the vibe that you are flaunting what you know while simultaneously expressing disdain and smugness re: my uneducated, apathetic atheist ignorance. I am not the only person that has picked up on that, several other posters have expressed similar feelings. I think you could have adequately and effectively made the points you’ve said you were trying to demonstrate here without the well I’ve been there so I should know vibe.
Even the way you phrase “comfortable middle American frame of reference” drips of insult, like it is supposed to provoke me – it is the flavour of some kind of elitist sentiment that because you’ve been around you are somehow elevated above us and thus justified in condemning our perceived pride in refusing to learn anything about religions to which we do not subscribe.
Mention your experiences whenever you like, but I hope you’d do it in a non-condescening way, and when they’re truly relevant to the discussion. And on behalf of anyone who grew up, lived, and died in the same town I would like to protest that there is nothing inherantly wrong or insulting about middle America, nor have these individuals necessarily “done nothing with their lives.”
And it is your problem, not mine, because while I’ll never have to personally interact with you except here, if you can make the impression that you are a pompous derriere in this thread to several people, then chances are there are other people out there upon whom you’ve made similar impressions, and you might want to reconsider, however briefly, how you conduct your conversations given that knowledge. Maybe you take pride in it, I don’t know…
To elaborate on this, I think this confusion can and does happen on either end of the conversation.
Take the statement, “I’m proud that I know nothing about Will and Grace.”
The listener might interpret this one of two ways. On one hand, he might just hear a hyperbolic statement about my lack of interest in this show or TV in general. On the other hand, he might think that I literally avoid knowledge of this show (maybe by shouting “LA LA LA LA LA” with my hands over my ears if anyone around me discusses it). I believe that assuming the latter is a mistake on the listener’s part.
Furthermore, it might be me who’s mistaken about the meaning of this sentence. I might, as mentioned before, simply be making a hyperbolic statement about my lack of interest. However, (and I think this is the part that people miss) I might have actually convinced myself that the ignorance of specific facts is the goal, and have literally begun to avoid knowledge. This is a mistake on the speaker’s part.
So rather than “people who say they are willfully ignorant are idiots”, I’d say “people who automatically take others’ proclamations of willful ignorance literally are making a bad assumption” and “people who claim to be willfully ignorant and mean it literally are missing their own point.”
Again, you are reading things into my posts that just aren’t there, "my uneducated, apathetic atheist ignorance. " As I’ve posted many times, I’m an atheist-no god for me, thanks, so don’t think I disagree with that stance.
Well, mostly you four seem more interested in building up a good head of steam by reading each other’s comments about my posts instead of reading my posts directly.
Where did I say that traveling elevated me in any way whatsoever? It doesn’t, and I didn’t so you can drop that garbage right now. I talked about where I’ve been because I was accused of namedropping and being pretentious, and I’m not.
You guys all seem to be angry that I talk about places outside the US–so, am I supposed NOT to?
That’s your insecurity, not mine. I am all for middle America, but it’s not all there is in the damn world. There are other places, I’ve lived there, and those experiences are going to come up.
How would you like it if every time you mentioned your job, I accused YOU of elevating yourself above me because I don’t have a job right now. Would that be fair? Would it even be reasonable? Of course not, and neither is this load of crap you’re trying to lay on me.
And what of the people who agreed with my OP and thanked me for posting it? Are they “pompous derrieres” too? Sorry, but living abroad and talking about experiences there does not make me pompous.
It’s clear you have no inkling of who I am. I’m a very quiet person, and any Doper who’s met me will tell you that. Pride? Yeah, right.
For what it’s worth (mind you, that plus a buck will get something from the average vending machine–dollar supplied separately), I’m down with the OP. I’ve about as much use for atheist fundieism as I do for Christian fundieism as I do for left/right/top/down-wing fundieism.
Still, I think people should really pause to take stock when they find themselves uttering things like “…but anyone who knows me…” when critiqued on tone–it’s largely irrelevant to the merits and/or flaws of post-tone perception. (As an extreme stretched example, look how often people insisted Joe_Cool was just a great guy in person during his terminal posting arc.)
That’s a view coming from someone–likewise a quiet person by nature–who’s personally had a very difficult time accepting the essential truth of the idea that the practical meaning of a message is, in large part, in how it is received.
File accordingly–the world is going to keep right on spinning, after all.
Good point, and I wouldn’t have said that except that Jinwicked said,
If I’m an asshole online (though I make no such admission), so be it, but if she’s going to extrapolate that to my life offline, I’m going to tell her she’s wrong.
Sugar, I never missed an episode of American Idol (I was a Clay supporter). I’d watch Smackdown (mmm, Kurt Angle), but there’s a TV conflict.
Se, you have this idea that because one reads and is interested in what you would consider esoterica, that somehow one cannot enjoy more down to earth pursuits.
See, it’s not either/or, it’s and. That’s why I’m so completely mystified why you and others are taking this discussion so personally. IMO, religon (and mathematics) are such immensely rich fields of study that to ignore them is to miss out. Clearly, you disagree.
But why does that make you attack me for holding this opinion? More to the point, refusing to study out of spite (and I can find no other interpretation for the remarks that sparked this thread) is completely antithetical to the spirit of this board.
It’s about eradicating ignorance, not preserving it.
But suppose you thought that the entire insurance industry was corrupt on basic principle, because like Ned Flanders you consider it gambling. You might then hold disdain for the industry as a whole without necessarily needing to know some of the specifics.
If you are 99% certain that the world is materialist, then the specifics of Hindu, Christian, or Islamic theology are not things you need to know in order to make a judgment about the value of those fields. If there is no spiritual component to the universe, then all the details predicated on spiritualism are irrelevant. In fact, you might indeed hold a certain amount of scorn for those people who managed to dwell only briefly on that highly questionable basic underlying premise and go right to arguing about minute details. One might then say, “I’m glad I didn’t fall for the spiritual world-view, or I’d have been suckered into arguing endlessly about the nature of such a spiritual world.”
Irrelevant? You are not the only being in this world, and even if you don’t believe there is a spiritual world, many do. People who affect you. I’d consider it relevant. But, that’s just me.
Okay… well then, I take it all back. No hard feelings, Honeypoof.
Eris, you are the wind beneath my wings 
Izzy… I woulda got away with it if it weren’t for you pesky kids.
pan
I don’t watch american idol, and I’m proud of that fact, so Nyah nyah na nah nahhhhh. (Where is a highly intralectewel tongue sticking out smiley when you need it?)
Well, that’s sort of the point of this thread: if you don’t watch **
American Idol*, there’s no loss because it’s disposable entertainment that will be forgotten five years from now. But ignoring the legacy of religion in our culture is, IMO, to ignore our common heritage.
The sentiment in the OP is not original. In the spirit of the above quote I offer another old quote:
That is kind of the OP in a bunch less words. gobear seems to be saying that this holds true for certain types of knowledge especially. Eh. I personally want to learn all I possibly can, but it is offset by my desire to be entertained, to be happy, and to pay my rent. We all must balance these facets of life. Unfortunately, there is more information globally then any one human can assimilate. As a matter of fact it has been estimated that the amount of information in the world is doubling at least once every two years.
Since it is impossible to learn all of this, I see nothing wrong with making deliberate choices about which information one will disregard. These choices will be influenced by personal taste, resources, capacity, and free time. Being a registered Libertarian it probably shouldn’t be surprising that I feel that if you don’t hurt or steal from anybody then it should be your right to make your life pleasant however you see fit (ie not studying or studying). For me it means learning alot, for others it may mean vegging out in front of the TV. I much prefer the company of those people who are knowledge seekers, but I don’t condemn those who are content in their ignorance - again, provided they do so in a manner that hurts no one. I just don’t hang out with them too often.
Not giving a fuck about history, what x equals, or the finer points of art and culture doesn’t make one wicked IMO. If those things bore you or learning them seems dull (and therefore affects your happiness) I hold no ill will when you ignore them in the pursuit of making your own life pleasant. It’s your right.
I have some friends that know shitloads about motorcycles and they enjoy it. They don’t know much about philosophy or religion, and I don’t think that I am better than them because I do, and they don’t think they are better than me either. My eyes glaze over when they start talking about bikes and I just nod dumbly. Different strokes for different folks.
I must admit, I find the aggressive wording in the OP to be a little heavy handed. I once started a thread condemning those who lack a working knowledge of pop-culture (having seen Pulp Fiction in particular), but my aggressive tone was tounge-in-cheek. I see a similar tone here, but it seems serious. I think attempts to convince people of the worthiness of a particular area of knowledge would be better served with less vitriol. In that vein, one more quote before I go:
DaLovin’ Dj
And yet I’m like His4Ever because I haven’t seen Titanic, don’t care about The Matrix, and haven’t read any Harry Potter books?
Color me 
Hasn’t read Harry Potter!!! Burn the Heritic…
Seriously, one reason I don’t learn about (watch) American Idol, is that I see it has adictive qualities. So I avoid it to avoid getting entrapped into its ideas.
I also avoid learning the pleasures of smoking because of its adictive qualities.
Maybe someone might wish to avoid learning the intricacies of religion, because of its adictive qualities.
Imagine if I said from my limited knowledge that I think Scientology is a load of krok. Would it be wise to go to scientology meetings to learn more? Or would it be wiser to realise that people have been drawn into scientology whom may be wiser than me, and that learning in this way would be dangerous.
I’m not really dissputing the OP here, but the part of the OP saying all avoiding of learning is by necessity bad.
I never said that–those were words you put in my mouth.
I said one was like His4Ever if, like her, one shuns an entire branch of learning because it offended one’s world view. IMO, the sentence “I’m an atheist, so I’ll make sure I never learn anything about religion” is as wrongheaded as “I’m a Christian, so I’ll never learn about science.”
Bullshit, more bullshit, and even MORE bullshit. Again, you’re trying to weasel by backpedalling and saying that you’re attacking “ideas, not people.” This is EXACTLY (sic) what you said, directly after my post:
So no, you didn’t say “one” was like H4E if an entire branch of learning was shunned because it offended “one’s” world view. You said that I was like His4Ever because… well, you never really quote the passage that shows my “militant ignorance,” so I presume you must be objecting to either (a) my dearth of pop culture knowledge or (b) a [mistaken] assumption you made about my knowledge of religion. Either way, you’ve changed your story so many damned times (with nary a retraction or an admission that you were ambiguous, I might add) that I’ve got no idea what the hell you’re saying.
Hey, Einstein, it was in the fuckin’ OP.
Hey, fucksticj=k, don;t go presuming. I explained clearly in every damn post what I was talking about. I’m sorry you’re too stupid to read what I said.
Bullshit. I’ve changed nothing and I stand my every post that I’ve made. As has been pointed out, this is a discussion, so when clarification was asked for, I gave it. But I’ve changed not a damn thing.
I owe nobody an apology, but you owe me one for your vicious, unprovoked, and highly personal attack, starting from your very first post.
Fuck off.
Actually, Quixotic78, it seems you have a really faulty memory.
Here’s the very beginning of your first post:
First, in my OP, I talked about religion, NOT the Matrix, or Harry Potter, or Titanic, so right away you’ve shown you didn’t even understand the OP in the first place.
Then you posted this gem:
And that provoked my reply, “Again, you’re proud of what you don’t know. In my book, that makes you and His4ever on the same level.”
Ignorant atheism is, IMO, exactly as bad as ignorant fundmentalism. If you doubt me, then read this GD thread.
But I suspect you’d rather distort the facts and have an irrational hissy fit than actually take the trouble to know what the hell you’re talking about.
Moron.