Ode to ignorance

[siti]

Picking up on the idea in @bobhikes ' thread here: Born this way a New understanding. I am introducing a new religion which I want to call "ignorantism" - not because I want to promote ignorance (quite the contrary), but because I think human ignorance should be properly acknowledged and be given pride of place as the origin of both scientific and religious attempts to explain the world. Here's a rhyming riddle I just wrote to show you what I mean:

Its called "Ode to Ignorance" and put to music it is intended to become the opening anthem in the official Church of Ignorantism hymnal:

What drives a man to fear his brother
Then damn himself for being ‘other’
Fills thoughts with dread when nothing’s there
Yet sanctions hope in deep despair
What prompts our probing wit to doubt
Then seek and learn the ins and outs
It sparks our minds to cogitate
Then moves our souls to meditate
It points us to discovery
And moves us to philosophy
It gives our science a place to start
Yet leaves us scope for works of art
Informs all human circumstance
But lacks due credit: ignorance!​

What do you think - about the point, not the poem?

 

[Axe Elf]

It's very ignorant.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

 

[cladking]

Your work?

Very impressive.

Something seems to be missing though.

 

[Shushersbedamned]

The poem is bad. I don't know what you mean at all. There's no cure for stupidity. And the stupid don't even know the damage they cause.

 

[Mock Turtle]

The poem is bad. I don't know what you mean at all. There's no cure for stupidity. And the stupid don't even know the damage they cause.

Which religion would that be then?

 

[Shushersbedamned]

Which religion would that be then?

What?

 

[Mock Turtle]

What?

What exactly did you mean by this:

"There's no cure for stupidity. And the stupid don't even know the damage they cause."

 

[Shushersbedamned]

What exactly did you mean by this:

"There's no cure for stupidity. And the stupid don't even know the damage they cause."

Exactly what it says. People are ****ing stupid and that can't be changed

 

[Mock Turtle]

Exactly what it says. People are ****ing stupid and that can't be changed

Very profound - does that come from your religious beliefs or just something out of a Christmas cracker?

 

[Nakosis]

Picking up on the idea in @bobhikes ' thread here: Born this way a New understanding. I am introducing a new religion which I want to call "ignorantism" - not because I want to promote ignorance (quite the contrary), but because I think human ignorance should be properly acknowledged and be given pride of place as the origin of both scientific and religious attempts to explain the world. Here's a rhyming riddle I just wrote to show you what I mean:

Its called "Ode to Ignorance" and put to music it is intended to become the opening anthem in the official Church of Ignorantism hymnal:

What drives a man to fear his brother
Then damn himself for being ‘other’
Fills thoughts with dread when nothing’s there
Yet sanctions hope in deep despair
What prompts our probing wit to doubt
Then seek and learn the ins and outs
It sparks our minds to cogitate
Then moves our souls to meditate
It points us to discovery
And moves us to philosophy
It gives our science a place to start
Yet leaves us scope for works of art
Informs all human circumstance
But lacks due credit: ignorance!​

What do you think - about the point, not the poem?

Better to be ignorant than stupid. Ignorance can be cured.

 

[Shushersbedamned]

Very profound - does that come from your religious beliefs or just something out of a Christmas cracker?

I' not sure I have what should be called religious beliefs. It comes from experience. People have abused me with what constituted by 98% of ignorane all my life.

 

[Shushersbedamned]

Better to be ignorant than stupid. Ignorance can be cured.

Hmm.. true. But if an ignorant person is willing to learn and humble they not only are already wiser than some might think and the don' come off as ignorant. They might be compared to some. But ignorance at least to me only comes steaming off people who are also arrogant and proud.

 

[Aldrnari]

I liked the poem.

Ignorance in itself is quite innocent. Hell, I'm ignorant of far more than I know. What we do with our ignorance is what's important, though.

Do we identify it and acknowledge our lack of understanding? Are we uncomfortable with it, and seek to conquer it? Maybe it sparks curiosity and branches into an interest we never knew we've had before? Or maybe we'd rather live in our ignorance and remain comfortable not having to ask questions at all.

The way one faces ignorance can change one's outlook on life, IMO.

 

[Mock Turtle]

I' not sure I have what should be called religious beliefs. It comes from experience. People have abused me with what constituted by 98% of ignorane all my life.

Sorry about the comment, I thought this was the, Do you need any more enemies thread - I might be running low ..........

 

[siti]

The poem is bad.

Oh thanks. I won't give up my day job then.

I don't know what you mean at all.

Then how do you know its bad?

There's no cure for stupidity.

What cures have you tried? Maybe we should compare notes.

OK - I apologize - I guess my post is both 'ignorantist' and a bit 'obscurantist' (which used to be synonyms if you look at older dictionaries from the early 20th century). Anyway - my point was not to promote ignorance but to acknowledge it as the starting point for investigation and the end point of learning.

When we start a scientific investigation we begin with a question or problem we do not know the answer to - it is a tacit acknowledgement of our ignorance. As a science student I was taught to conclude reports with suggestions for further work - more questions we do not know the answer to. And in most cases - if we are honest - we only ever achieve partial answers to the initial question and we end up with even more questions at the end than we had at the outset. We are increasingly aware of how ignorant we really are in the face of a stupendous and possibly infinite universal theatre in which we are, at best, bit part extras making a fleeting and insignificant and uncredited appearance - and yet in our ignorance we give ourselves license to imagine that we are the purpose of its entire existence.

Fundamentalism does not acknowledge ignorance. Fundamentalism thinks all the questions are answered or will be answered in due course. Perhaps that is true - but I doubt it. I think that no matter how much knowledge we acquire - when it comes to the vastness and diversity of the cosmos and the intricacies of the human life, we will always be profoundly ignorant because there will always be much more left to learn than we already know. And I'm glad about that because that fact leaves a glimmer of hope in a hopeless world and room for joyful poetry in a bleak prosaic reality.

Bottom line - if we ever think we have escaped ignorance we constitute ourselves the most ignorant of all.

 

[siti]

People are ****ing stupid and that can't be changed

I agree! So don't swim against the tide - embrace it my dear ignorantist brother! I'll have you converted yet...just kidding - but you're right - people are ****ing stupid and that a'int gonna change - but what can change is the approach of those who might be slightly less stupid. They can do this simply by being slightly less stupid about the stupidity of the slightly more stupid.

NB - We don't have to worry too much about the more profoundly stupid, they have various ways of eliminating themselves from the gene pool - like the lawyer who demonstrated with a loaded gun how an alleged murder victim had actually shot himself - it worked - he won the case (posthumously of course) and a "Darwin Award".

 

[siti]

Better to be ignorant than stupid. Ignorance can be cured.

Not completely. Its a bit like cancer - when you think its gone, it metastatizes. There is no cure - just temporary relief from some of its symptoms.

 

[Shushersbedamned]

nge - but what can change is the approach of those who might be slightly less stupid. They can do this simply by being slightly less stupid about the stupidity of the slightly more stupid.
.

If the SS men were slightly more stupid than the jews.

They try, but it's a constant struggle and one might as well stop trying and just drown..

 

[siti]

They try, but it's a constant struggle and one might as well stop trying and just drown..

Well OK - that's one way of looking at it - but here's another way: is the SS still there? Are the Jews? Not minimizing the holocaust but that particular manifestation of genocidal xenophobia was stamped out - but the ignorant intolerance that spawned it remains a part of the "collective" human psyche - it is that I don't want anyone to forget - not our pent up indignation and outrage at a particular instance, but our general propensity for the most appalling inhumanity to fellow humans. To deny that propensity is more perilous than denying the fact of the holocaust I think.