Ignorance Is A Two-Way Street
As I prepared to leave school today, I happened to overhear a remarkable conversation while standing next to my locker.
Three people - what appeared to be two students and a professor - were discussing how to "educate" the public on the proper political and social views. Though I did not hear the entire conversation, the bits I heard were remarkably hate-filled.
Student A: We need to just go to the churches...to reach the largest groups of stupid people as possible.
Older Person (student? prof?): And we need to show them how wrong they are.
Student B: I think they are afriad of how angry we are, though. But it's better to be angry than scared. They are too afriad to change things because they don't think their lives are bad. And that's the problem...they have too much money to care.
That was about as much as I could manage.
I don't care about a person's political persuasion. That is not going to be something on which I base my opinion about a person. But to say that someone who disagrees with you as "stupid" is not only ignorant, but blatantly hypocritical...especially when the Left is supposed to be the party of inclusion.
There are numerous things wrong with the statement that religious people are "stupid" and "wrong." First, it assumes that all religious people - you know, let's call a spade a spade...they meant Christians - are Republicans/conservative. Pigeon-holeing a entire religion into one characteristic is a little thing I like to call stereotyping. Not to mention that I can point to people in my section who are both Christian and vote Democrat.
Second, it is absolutely ridiculous to make the presumption that being religious is stupid. Broadly, some of the greatest thinkers in the history of mankind were also religious men, and more narrowly, everyday geniuses - your doctor for example - practice some sort of religion, be it Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hindu, etc.
If these people took the time to actually speak to someone who is religious, they would understand that many actually crave knowledge more than their secular peers. "Religion" itself - depending on your interpretation of the Greek - means "reading" or "re-reading." I prefer the latter translation, which implies that religious study requires constant analyzation, and then re-analyzation. This not only applies to religious texts, but life in general. Understanding - in the broad, esoteric sense - is gained through constant evaluation.
Unfortunately, religious ignorance continues to run rampant among supposedly enlightened people.
Three people - what appeared to be two students and a professor - were discussing how to "educate" the public on the proper political and social views. Though I did not hear the entire conversation, the bits I heard were remarkably hate-filled.
Student A: We need to just go to the churches...to reach the largest groups of stupid people as possible.
Older Person (student? prof?): And we need to show them how wrong they are.
Student B: I think they are afriad of how angry we are, though. But it's better to be angry than scared. They are too afriad to change things because they don't think their lives are bad. And that's the problem...they have too much money to care.
That was about as much as I could manage.
I don't care about a person's political persuasion. That is not going to be something on which I base my opinion about a person. But to say that someone who disagrees with you as "stupid" is not only ignorant, but blatantly hypocritical...especially when the Left is supposed to be the party of inclusion.
There are numerous things wrong with the statement that religious people are "stupid" and "wrong." First, it assumes that all religious people - you know, let's call a spade a spade...they meant Christians - are Republicans/conservative. Pigeon-holeing a entire religion into one characteristic is a little thing I like to call stereotyping. Not to mention that I can point to people in my section who are both Christian and vote Democrat.
Second, it is absolutely ridiculous to make the presumption that being religious is stupid. Broadly, some of the greatest thinkers in the history of mankind were also religious men, and more narrowly, everyday geniuses - your doctor for example - practice some sort of religion, be it Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hindu, etc.
If these people took the time to actually speak to someone who is religious, they would understand that many actually crave knowledge more than their secular peers. "Religion" itself - depending on your interpretation of the Greek - means "reading" or "re-reading." I prefer the latter translation, which implies that religious study requires constant analyzation, and then re-analyzation. This not only applies to religious texts, but life in general. Understanding - in the broad, esoteric sense - is gained through constant evaluation.
Unfortunately, religious ignorance continues to run rampant among supposedly enlightened people.
posted by The Humble Best at 8:38 PM
1 Comments:
Something that occurred to me while reading this post is that your interpretation of religion as "re-reading" and continual reevaluation is strikely similar to Nietzsche's process of "becoming" where man attempts to continually remake himself. Of course, it is rather amusing when we find a similarity between religion and Nietzsche's philosophy.
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