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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (32336)	10/13/2001 9:31:11 PM
From: s.jennings	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

"The terrorists appear to be religiously motivated. Whether they are ignorant or not is another question." What we know is our knowledge. What we don't know is our ignorance. None of us knows everything so we are all ignorant in regard to certain aspects of life, be they personal, technical, historical, etc. This does not imply that we are ignorant people, only that we don't know everything there is to know. "Lots of people believe things and are SURE they know (and would deny they are ignorant)" Belief is accepting something to be true based on the testimony of others. If we really know something, do we need to take someone else's word for it? No. The surety that we know our belief is right is just an effort to convince ourselves and others that we are right. If we have to believe, we don't know. "There are people here on this thread who are sure they know there are "absolutes" of some sort, they believe this- since they obviously can't prove it scientifically are they ignorant?" I'm not clear on this question. If you meant there are people who know there are absolutes, then this is their knowledge. If you meant they know their belief regarding absolutes is correct, then again, if we have to believe, we don't know. How often do we hear ourselves and others say " well. I don't know but I believe this that and the other thing and therefore I do this that and the other." It seems this is so commonplace that we see it as one continuous thought, but its not. "I don't know" is square one, the problem or cause. "But I believe" is square two, the effect or partial solution. Not knowing isn't a problem if it regards something we don't care about but if it regards something we think we should know or need to know it results in a fear of the unknown. This fear motivates us to search for this knowledge. This leads us to religions, gurus, martial arts, and all the various so-called "paths" to this knowledge. Unfortunately we stop well before reaching our goal. We only go as far as we have to to feel safe. We can admit we still don't know but since so and so knew, we'll just take his word for it and join his club and we'll be okay. Once we are members of the club we begin to structure our lives according to club rules. All of this ignores our reality, which we left back at square one. Regardless how many beliefs we have and how strongly we believe them, we still don't know. So are we operating from a position of knowledge or a position of ignorance? What would happen if one fine day all of the people of the world woke up honest? If the Muslims said "well we're muslims but we don't know" and the Christians said "don't feel like the lone ranger because we don't know either" and the disciples of the gurus said" we wouldn't still be here with old fuzz nuts if we knew so count us in'. Wouldn't they all be united in their common lack of knowlege? Wouldn't it make more sense for them to say' since none of us knows why don't we put our heads together and study each others doctrines and and continue the search we started back at square one?" Shouldn't this be what the so- called religious leaders of the world should be preaching? It would seem so to me.