{"id":799,"date":"2010-01-19T09:51:31","date_gmt":"2010-01-19T14:51:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=799"},"modified":"2010-01-19T09:51:31","modified_gmt":"2010-01-19T14:51:31","slug":"the-insult-of-ignorance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=799","title":{"rendered":"The Insult of Ignorance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Often times when I get into a conversation with a fundamentalist Christian, they tend to get offended by the mere possibility that they don\u2019t know everything. I think people of reason and fundamentalists have a very different view of knowledge and a much different view of what it means to lack knowledge.<\/p>\n<p>As a person of reason, I am well aware that I don\u2019t know it all. I know that there are things in the universe that I am ignorant about. The scientific method is the best tool we have to learn about things that we don\u2019t know about and keeps our minds open to new ideas which may fit the evidence better than the older ideas.<\/p>\n<p>Fundamentalist Christians however seem to get offended when they are forced to admit that they are ignorant about a particular subject or piece of knowledge. They seem to consider ignorance as an insult rather than an opportunity to learn.<\/p>\n<p>It seems to me that this is in large part to their insecurity in relation to knowledge in general. Fundamentalist Christians subconsciously know that they are ignorant about science and the world around them. They know that they are hiding from their ignorance with the myth of their religion. To the fundamentalist, God is the answer to every question, but when their true ignorance is exposed they get defensive, angry, and insulted.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIgnorance is of a particular nature; once dispelled, it is impossible to re-establish it.\u201d \u2013Thomas Paine<br \/>\n<!-- AddThis Button BEGIN --><br \/>\n<a onclick=\"return addthis_sendto()\" onmouseover=\"return addthis_open(this, '', '[URL]', '[TITLE]')\" onmouseout=\"addthis_close()\" href=\"http:\/\/www.addthis.com\/bookmark.php?v=250&amp;pub=dangeroustalk\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border:0\" src=\"http:\/\/s7.addthis.com\/static\/btn\/lg-share-en.gif\" alt=\"Bookmark and Share\" width=\"125\" height=\"16\" \/><\/a><script src=\"http:\/\/s7.addthis.com\/js\/250\/addthis_widget.js?pub=dangeroustalk\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script><br \/>\n<!-- AddThis Button END --><\/p>\n<div class=\"linkwithin_hook\" id=\"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=799\"><\/div><script>\n<!-- \/\/LinkWithinCodeStart\nvar linkwithin_site_id = 317364;\nvar linkwithin_div_class = \"linkwithin_hook\";\n\/\/LinkWithinCodeEnd -->\n<\/script>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/widget.js\"><\/script>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/pixel.png\" alt=\"Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...\" style=\"border: 0\" \/><\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Often times when I get into a conversation with a fundamentalist Christian, they tend to get offended by the mere possibility that they don\u2019t know everything. I think people of reason and fundamentalists have a very different view of knowledge and a much different view of what it means to lack knowledge. As a person [&hellip;]<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n<script>\n<!-- \/\/LinkWithinCodeStart\nvar linkwithin_site_id = 317364;\nvar linkwithin_div_class = \"linkwithin_hook\";\n\/\/LinkWithinCodeEnd -->\n<\/script>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/widget.js\"><\/script>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/pixel.png\" alt=\"Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...\" style=\"border: 0\" \/><\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[310,660,422,134,9],"tags":[2215,37,50,2234,307,360,1009],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=799"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":800,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799\/revisions\/800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}