Willful Ignorance

[Zzyzx]

.
Often in these debates and elsewhere, I encounter attitudes that suggest 'Willful Ignorance' – defined as: The practice or act of intentional and blatant avoidance, disregard or disagreement with facts, empirical evidence and well-founded arguments because they oppose or contradict your own existing personal beliefs. www.urbandictionary.com

Below are some thoughts of others regarding Willful Ignorance

Quotes About Willful Ignorance

Thomas A. Edison
“Five percent of the people think; ten percent of the people think they think; and the other eighty-five percent would rather die than think.�

Stephen Fry
“There are young men and women up and down the land who happily (or unhappily) tell anyone who will listen that they don’t have an academic turn of mind, or that they aren’t lucky enough to have been blessed with a good memory, and yet can recite hundreds of pop lyrics and reel off any amount of information about footballers. Why? Because they are interested in those things. They are curious. If you are hungry for food, you are prepared to hunt high and low for it. If you are hungry for information it is the same. Information is all around us, now more than ever before in human history. You barely have to stir or incommode yourself to find things out. The only reason people do not know much is because they do not care to know. They are incurious. Incuriosity is the oddest and most foolish failing there is.�

P.J. O'Rourke
“No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.�

Aldous Huxley
“The vast majority of human beings dislike and even actually dread all notions with which they are not familiar... Hence it comes about that at their first appearance innovators have generally been persecuted, and always derided as fools and madmen.�

Plato
“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.�

Rick Riordan
“Humans see what they want to see.�

Søren Kierkegaard
“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.�

Isaac Asimov
“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.�

Atwood H. Townsend
“No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance.�

Ayn Rand
“The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody has decided not to see.�

Benjamin Franklin
“We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid.�

Terry Goodkind
“People are stupid. They will believe a lie because they want to believe it's true, or because they are afraid it might be true.�

Stephen Chbosky
“It’s much easier not to know things sometimes.�

Ray Bradbury
“But you can't make people listen. They have to come round in their own time, wondering what happened and why the world blew up around them. It can't last.�

Anne Rice
“Give me a man or woman who has read a thousand books and you give me an interesting companion. Give me a man or woman who has read perhaps three and you give me a very dangerous enemy indeed.�

Benjamin Franklin
“Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn.�

Richard Dawkins
“. . . one of the truly bad effects of religion is that it teaches us that it is a virtue to be satisfied with not understanding.�

John Steinbeck
“Sometimes a man wants to be stupid if it lets him do a thing his cleverness forbids.�

Charles Darwin
“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.�

Brandon Sanderson
“I try to avoid having thoughts. They lead to other thoughts, and—if you’re not careful—those lead to actions. Actions make you tired. I have this on rather good authority from someone who once read it in a book.�

Abraham Lincoln
“I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.�

Richard Dawkins
“Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is the belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.�

Milan Kundera
“A man is responsible for his ignorance.�

Isaac Asimov
“To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today.�

Erin Morgenstern
“Because I do not wish to know,� he says. “I prefer to remain unenlightened, to better appreciate the dark.�

Aleister Crowley
“The sin which is unpardonable is knowingly and willfully to reject truth, to fear knowledge lest that knowledge pander not to thy prejudices.�

Jodi Picoult
“Sometimes we find ourselves walking through life blindfolded, and we try to deny that we're the ones who securely tied the knot.�

James A. Michener
“An age is called Dark, not because the light fails to shine, but because people refuse to see it.�

Sheri S. Tepper
“[T]he scripture worshippers put the writings ahead of God. Instead of interpreting God's actions in nature, for example, they interpret nature in the light of the Scripture. Nature says the rock is billions of years old, but the book says different, so even though men wrote the book, and God made the rock and God gave us minds that have found ways to tell how old it is, we still choose to believe the Scripture.�

http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/willful-ignorance

There are more notable quotes at that location

In debate, Theists typically do not present evidence (certainly not verifiable evidence) to support their claims, stories, and beliefs (and/or make emotional appeals). They cite 'scripture' written by ancient religion promoters and regarded as 'holy' by worshipers. When ancient tales depart from what is known of the real world, an attempt is often made to 'debunk' modern science (so they can continue to believe or justify believing) what ancients wrote).

It is often said or implied that, 'Science is a grand conspiracy against religion' – as though millions of scientists worldwide over centuries (including many who are Christians or followers of other religions) all conspire to prove religion wrong – when what scientists actually do is attempt to understand the world we inhabit.

Does the rejection of modern knowledge constitute willful ignorance?

[Tired of the Nonsense]

.
Often in these debates and elsewhere, I encounter attitudes that suggest 'Willful Ignorance' – defined as: The practice or act of intentional and blatant avoidance, disregard or disagreement with facts, empirical evidence and well-founded arguments because they oppose or contradict your own existing personal beliefs. www.urbandictionary.com

Below are some thoughts of others regarding Willful Ignorance

Quotes About Willful Ignorance

Thomas A. Edison
“Five percent of the people think; ten percent of the people think they think; and the other eighty-five percent would rather die than think.�

Stephen Fry
“There are young men and women up and down the land who happily (or unhappily) tell anyone who will listen that they don’t have an academic turn of mind, or that they aren’t lucky enough to have been blessed with a good memory, and yet can recite hundreds of pop lyrics and reel off any amount of information about footballers. Why? Because they are interested in those things. They are curious. If you are hungry for food, you are prepared to hunt high and low for it. If you are hungry for information it is the same. Information is all around us, now more than ever before in human history. You barely have to stir or incommode yourself to find things out. The only reason people do not know much is because they do not care to know. They are incurious. Incuriosity is the oddest and most foolish failing there is.�

P.J. O'Rourke
“No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.�

Aldous Huxley
“The vast majority of human beings dislike and even actually dread all notions with which they are not familiar... Hence it comes about that at their first appearance innovators have generally been persecuted, and always derided as fools and madmen.�

Plato
“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.�

Rick Riordan
“Humans see what they want to see.�

Søren Kierkegaard
“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.�

Isaac Asimov
“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.�

Atwood H. Townsend
“No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance.�

Ayn Rand
“The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody has decided not to see.�

Benjamin Franklin
“We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid.�

Terry Goodkind
“People are stupid. They will believe a lie because they want to believe it's true, or because they are afraid it might be true.�

Stephen Chbosky
“It’s much easier not to know things sometimes.�

Ray Bradbury
“But you can't make people listen. They have to come round in their own time, wondering what happened and why the world blew up around them. It can't last.�

Anne Rice
“Give me a man or woman who has read a thousand books and you give me an interesting companion. Give me a man or woman who has read perhaps three and you give me a very dangerous enemy indeed.�

Benjamin Franklin
“Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn.�

Richard Dawkins
“. . . one of the truly bad effects of religion is that it teaches us that it is a virtue to be satisfied with not understanding.�

John Steinbeck
“Sometimes a man wants to be stupid if it lets him do a thing his cleverness forbids.�

Charles Darwin
“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.�

Brandon Sanderson
“I try to avoid having thoughts. They lead to other thoughts, and—if you’re not careful—those lead to actions. Actions make you tired. I have this on rather good authority from someone who once read it in a book.�

Abraham Lincoln
“I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.�

Richard Dawkins
“Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is the belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.�

Milan Kundera
“A man is responsible for his ignorance.�

Isaac Asimov
“To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today.�

Erin Morgenstern
“Because I do not wish to know,� he says. “I prefer to remain unenlightened, to better appreciate the dark.�

Aleister Crowley
“The sin which is unpardonable is knowingly and willfully to reject truth, to fear knowledge lest that knowledge pander not to thy prejudices.�

Jodi Picoult
“Sometimes we find ourselves walking through life blindfolded, and we try to deny that we're the ones who securely tied the knot.�

James A. Michener
“An age is called Dark, not because the light fails to shine, but because people refuse to see it.�

Sheri S. Tepper
“[T]he scripture worshippers put the writings ahead of God. Instead of interpreting God's actions in nature, for example, they interpret nature in the light of the Scripture. Nature says the rock is billions of years old, but the book says different, so even though men wrote the book, and God made the rock and God gave us minds that have found ways to tell how old it is, we still choose to believe the Scripture.�

http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/willful-ignorance

There are more notable quotes at that location

In debate, Theists typically do not present evidence (certainly not verifiable evidence) to support their claims, stories, and beliefs (and/or make emotional appeals). They cite 'scripture' written by ancient religion promoters and regarded as 'holy' by worshipers. When ancient tales depart from what is known of the real world, an attempt is often made to 'debunk' modern science (so they can continue to believe or justify believing) what ancients wrote).

It is often said or implied that, 'Science is a grand conspiracy against religion' – as though millions of scientists worldwide over centuries (including many who are Christians or followers of other religions) all conspire to prove religion wrong – when what scientists actually do is attempt to understand the world we inhabit.

Does the rejection of modern knowledge constitute willful ignorance?

This "willful ignorance" idea reminds me of something that happened recently. I was at a family gathering, and one of my nephew's friends, who was getting some grief from my nephew and a couple of others for being a Trump supporter, insisted that he was so glad to be out from under Obama, "because of all the hardship Obama caused the American people while he was in office." Trump should bring Obama up on charges of treason, and be tried along side of Hillary Clinton.

That peaked my curiosity, and I asked him exactly WHAT hardships Obama had caused? At first he just fumbled around with "well, you know." And of course I didn't know, which is why I asked. He finally settled on Obamacare as the main hardship that Obama had imposed on the American people. He tried to insist that Obamacare had created "death squads" and was immediately laughed down by everyone who was listening.

I asked him where he got his insurance, and he said that he was ensured through his job. "So," I asked, "you have insurance through your job, but you begrudge those who are not so fortunate, to be able to get healthcare for themselves and their family?" His response to this was that "socialistic medicine" was somehow worse than no medicine at all.

Then he declared that Obama had made it possible for "queers" to get married.

First of all, I pointed out, it was the court that ruled that gays and lesbians should have equal rights to be married. And then I asked in what way gay marriage imposed a hardship on him personally? His response was that it offended God and directly attacked his religious beliefs. Besides, the economy suffered because of Obama's policies, according to him.

In fact the the Dow tripped during Obama's eight years in office, and unemployment was cut in half, I pointed out.

"Liberal lies," he insisted.

And Obama killed Osama Bin Laden, I noted.

He became very agitated at that. "No," he insisted furiously, "the military killed Bin Laden." Obama had nothing to do with it. Besides, he was pretty sure that Bush was president when Bin Laden was killed. He shut up though when someone pulled up the information of their smart phone and showed it to him.

So is this an example of "willful ignorance," conservative talk radio indoctrination, or just plain dim wittedness?

[benchwarmer]

So is this an example of "willful ignorance," conservative talk radio indoctrination, or just plain dim wittedness?

Don't you hate it when facts spoil a good rant

[Tired of the Nonsense]

So is this an example of "willful ignorance," conservative talk radio indoctrination, or just plain dim wittedness?

Don't you hate it when facts spoil a good rant

I have encountered many truly stupid people over the course of my lifetime, but each time I am confronted with it, it's just as depressing as the last time. I have no hope that the guy I was referring to has now changed his mind. But at least perhaps, just perhaps, he won't be as anxious to shoot off his mouth in public next time.

[William]

I think that there is no doubt that willful ignorance companies ancient notions which contradict scientific discovery.

I do not think that willful ignorance is practiced solely by religiously orientated practitioners, or that every religiously inclined personality is willful ignorant of scientific discovery.

I am sure that some non-theists would have trouble integrating some theories (such as this theory.) and would rather remain in the willful ignorance of their present beliefs about life, the universe and everything.

However I am sure that such theories are on the increase and are not going to go away, and that while they (potentially) help erase ancient non-relevant religious belief systems, they do not do so in relation to the idea of GOD in a non-religious light...rather they (potentially) help us to redefine what we mean by "GOD".

[Zzyzx]

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I am sure that some non-theists would have trouble integrating some theories (such as this theory.) and would rather remain in the willful ignorance of their present beliefs about life, the universe and everything.

Has Biocentrism been demonstrated to be truthful and accurate? Has the idea been widely circulated in the scientific community and in the public realm? Has supporting evidence been verified by disconnected researchers?

Note that there is a difference between ignorance vs. willful ignorance (Google the terms if unfamiliar). Those who are unfamiliar with Biocentrism may be ignorant of it without being willfully ignorant.

Declining to 'jump aboard' each new hypothesis or theory presented does not constitute willful ignorance. From Alexander Pope -- Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.

[William]

[Replying to post 6 by Zzyzx]

Declining to 'jump aboard' each new hypothesis or theory presented does not constitute willful ignorance.

My context of my post never implied that.