As A Christian, Do You Think "Too Much Knowledge Is Evil?"
Christian Ignorance In Genesis 2:17, God commands Adam and Eve, under the threat of death, to remain ignorant; ignorant of the knowledge of good and evil. And it seems like a lot of Christians, but by no means all, have, very seriously, taken this message to heart. They seem to revel in their own ignorance; to be proud of not knowing, or being unwilling to know, the truth about the world we inhabit. This is coming from an ex-fundamentalist Baptist, who believed, for nearly 20 years, that the Genesis story was, in its entirety, literally true. I personally know what its like to take pleasure in ignorance. I remember sitting in biology class, thinking, “this is all bullshit. I came from Adam and Eve, not some monkey.” Eventually, however, my huger for knowledge won out, and I had to get rid of the fundamentalist bullshit that I had been raised to believe. Now, when I look at fundamentalists and evangelicals, all I see is willful or easily cured ignorance. The scientific ignorance of 1st century goat-herders is completely excused; but it is, in my opinion, inexcusable to be ignorant of such basic scientific facts as evolution by natural selection, simple geology, or simple anthropology in the 21st century. We literally have all of human history and knowledge at our fingertips; it sits within arms reach of each one of us, just about every second of every day. At this point, the blame for ignorance falls on the individual. However, I do acknowledge that we are all ignorant about something - nobody knows everything about everything - but some people are so ridiculously ignorant, in such fundamental subjects, that it wouldn’t be a stretch to call them an ignoramus. While I know some people are just not capable of grasping high-level scientific concepts, I wouldn’t place the average fundamentalist Christian in that group. The average fundamentalist Christian is fully capable of understanding some very complex subjects; they just won’t allow themselves to understand anything that contradicts their indoctrination. In those areas, they are willfully and happily ignorant. As someone who wants to understand as much about as many things as I can, these displays of willful ignorance astonish and bewilder me. I can no longer wrap my head around how people are content to be ignorant. It just flabbergasts me when someone says “the earth is 6000 years old,” or “we didn’t come from a rock.” Like, seriously, the cure for ignorance is simple: pick up a nonfiction book on the subject and fucking read. It’s that easy, yet they won’t; and it saddens me. I am no longer content to be ignorant, nor am I content to allow people to wallow in their own ignorance. I know I’m not the smartest or most educated person in the world, but if I could help lead just one person away from ignorance I would be happy. That’s why I can’t keep my mouth shut when I see my aunt deriding science or an old acquaintance spouting religiously inspired bullshit. We’ve come to a point where ignorance is a danger to the whole human race, and, though he was the furthest thing from an atheist, I’ll leave you with a quote from the reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: “Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” Reposted with permission from Jared Bridge. Thoughts?
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