Before continuing, I want to make sure that you are well aware of exactly what I mean when I use the terms “ignorant” or “ignorance”. I would have been irritated beyond belief if even one person read this post thinking I was referring to people who were rude, or crass, or whatever other totally incorrect definition that has been denoted to mean ignorant. The following are the actual definitions of the terms. If you’re unsure, please read them before continuing. The last thing you’d want to be, while reading my most recent little diatribe, is exactly the kind of person I am turning my nose up at and exiling into the gutters of society, defining them simply as common garbage.

Definition of Ignorant

From Dictionary.com
1. lacking in knowledge or training; unlearned: an ignorant man.
2. lacking knowledge or information as to a particular subject or fact: ignorant of quantum physics.
3. uninformed; unaware.
4. due to or showing lack of knowledge or training: an ignorant statement.

From the Miriam-Webster Online Dictionary

1 a : destitute of knowledge or education <an ignorant society>; also : lacking knowledge or comprehension of the thing specified <parents ignorant of modern mathematics> b : resulting from or showing lack of knowledge or intelligence <ignorant errors>

2 : unaware, uninformed

Definition of Ignorance

From Dictionary.com
“the state or fact of being ignorant; lack of knowledge, learning, information, etc.”

From the Miriam-Webster Online Dictionary
the state or fact of being ignorant : lack of knowledge, education, or awareness

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, I have to tell you that ignorance pisses me off. Stupidity bothers me, but often times it’s not somebody’s fault that they’re stupid. It’s genetic, like having brown eyes. You can’t help your level of intelligence. You CAN, however, help your level of knowledge. And I’m not talking about the kind of knowledge you receive after 10 years of schooling. I’m talking about shit you can learn from picking up a book once in a while, watching TV, having conversations with other people. How the hell people can walk around without any desire to know anything more than what random thoughts their mind spits out to them, or without wanting to expand on the basic knowledge they learned as children absolutely flabbergasts me.

But the kind of ignorance that pisses me off is the kind that you most commonly get from people who have beliefs based on damn near nothing other than the shit they’ve learned from one source, the ones who outrightly REFUSE to learn anything more on the subject, and yet are SO convinced that their position is the correct one. Based on nothing. And then any time that you try your best to help them expand their pathetic little limited word or even have an intelligent discussion based on their belief system, all they can do is ignore anything you’re saying and spit out the same two or three played out lines that normally have not a God-damned thing to do with what you’re talking about whatsoever, and when you ask them to even explain what they MEAN by said bullshit (trying in vain to link the nonsense to the conversation because you truly want to believe they’re not complete jackasses) and then they stubbornly repeat the same damn line.

Like, seriously? You’re that IGNORANT to the subject you profess to be a guru on that you don’t have shit else to say on the matter? SMH in disgust. You make everybody with the same belief set or opinion as you look ignorant and uninformed.

From the Bible:
If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch. Matthew 15:14

You can probably tell from the bible quote that I’m right about to talk about religious ignorance. Because the ignorant shit that comes out of some of the uber religious gets so far up my skin I wanna spit in somebody’s face. Mostly theirs. Seriously. It honestly makes me sick. Specifically because I am a person who happens to have faith in God, but I am also a person who happens to know a damn lot about the subject other than what some preacher or the bible tells me. I know a whole lot about the bible too. And it’s not that I expect the world to know as much as I do about any one thing, but seriously, if in any conversation that has any type of religious spin, your response to me is “well it’s in the bible” or “because God says so” I start to wonder about you. When somebody rejects anything in the history books about Jesus or some other religious aspect because it’s not outlined in the bible, my blood honestly boils. Like, seriously? You don’t wanna know what your religion, your entire belief system is based on? You would rather sit there, stewing in your own ignorance?

Wouldn’t you want to know everything there is to know about something you profess to truly believe in, and follow, and want to encourage others to follow? How can you even say you KNOW something if you’re actually afraid to obtain knowledge about it? I mean, it’s one thing for people to twist religious beliefs or ideals to suit their own needs. It’s disgusting, and it’s immoral, and it’s just plain wrong, but it’s not ignorance. They are exerting power over people, abusing and manipulating people by using the one thing most people use to direct and focus their lives with. But they know damn well what they’re doing. Ignorance pisses me off because they are leading the dummies, the sheep who don’t know any better because they assume that what they’re being told is based on the be-all, end-all knowledge, the only true knowledge in existence, when in truth its based on very, very little. And not only are they giving incomplete information, they too were sheep, so they are not even aware of how ignorant they truly are. They don’t know they don’t know. They don’t even know they’re wrong.

Dude, I can totally understand how you could not want to be all knowing. I don’t give a shit about a lot of things, some which people really get on me about. It doesn’t matter to me, those things aren’t important to me, therefore I won’t even talk about them, and I most certainly would never offer my opinion on them. But the shit I claim, like psychology for example…I KNOW MY SHIT!! I do. If I’m going to talk about it, I’m gonna know it inside and out. Yet, I will approach the topic as if I don’t know everything because NOBODY DOES. I will be open to hear other people’s side in a discussion. I will even ask them for sources. And I will look them up!! Because psychology is MY shit, and as a result I want to know all that I can about it. How am I gonna walk around ignorant to 90% of the field and claim I know any damn thing about it? I just can’t. Well, I could, but then I would be one of those people I wanna slap the living shit out of.

Or at least give them a good shake. Scream at them “Stop following nothing mindlessly!! You are NOT a lemming, you can gain knowledge, you don’t have to just mindlessly trudge along!!”.

Ignorance grinds my gears. I think it’s kind of like the other side of the coin to lying. As you know, I HATE liars!! Worse than ignorance. But I think I find ignorance more disgusting. But lying is somebody else taking away your ability to be 100% informed, and ignorance is you robbing yourself of that same thing. In conclusion, I find being uninformed to be highly unpleasant, and I wish our society wasn’t so hell-bent on making sure everybody stayed that way.

*sigh*

Ok, I did my very very best not to be completely awful! I swear I did! 😉

What do you guys think about ignorance? Is it bliss, or an abomination to human life and free will?

Cheers

Martin Luther King, Jr.:
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.