tagor

Ignorance
n. The condition of being uneducated, unaware, or uninformed.

The power of ignorance lies in thoughts that don't occur to a person.

How can one prevent ignorance in as many applicable ways as possible?

Is it possible to mold a person's understanding of a situation by purposely distracting from a concept? How could you attempt to direct a distraction? If two concepts are joined, do the separate concepts become related in our mind (Drug and war- Drug war)? Can the use of a commonly decided understanding (War is bad) impact the emotional response upon recalling the meaning of a multi-dimensional concept?

The only way to know you're going to win a game is to play with a rigged hand. Can Christianity create a predictable distraction? If a Christian believes that the problem with a non-Christian is a lack of faith in God, then any person can take the blame for any "sin," with the justification that the person is willfully ignorant of God. (I'm not saying all Christians do this- not in the least. I know Christians with many different takes on their religion.) To me, this specific mindset indirectly expresses that an outside person's flaws generally occur because (s)he doesn't understand their existence similarly.

Is Fox News' defined mindset an attempt to prevent thoughts of doubt in the government by distraction? I have noticed that they have a trend in feeding examples of how immoral a non-Neo-Republican/God-ignoring-citizen is. Somehow it's a surprise to them that people working on different rule-sets don't pay attention to what they believe.

I guess what I'm saying (or not saying) is that the only peaceful way I can see someone taking over the world is through the creation of predictability in human responses. And that religion is the best stepping-stone available to accomplish that goal. Its intended purpose is to promote peace and understanding- a perfect guise. Since thought is generally unoriginal, it is very possible that a person has thought of this before me.

PS: Dear Religious persons, I ask you to not use blind faith in your decisions. And I ask you this under the assumption that only a person who looks for something wrong can purposely find something wrong. Which, in my experience, has yielded better results than waiting on coincidence (miracles anyone?) to find them for me.

PPS: I came upon this thought by thinking about why some people think that quotes are more descriptive than the medium they came out of. Seriously, this PPS is not a distraction.

Buzzby

The power of ignorance lies in accepting as true things that are not true. Acting on erroneous information, according to Buddhism, is the root cause for all the suffering in this universe.

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tagor

Are you implying that Buddhism teaches only true concepts?

Buzzby

Buddhism encourages people to meditate and discover the truth within themselves. Buddhism is generally non-doctrinaire. It teaches techniques for self-discovery.

tagor

If I'm understanding what you're saying: Buddhism leads in the direction of asking yourself questions and understanding ways in which to ask them to attain a desired answer. Then asking yourself about the self-understanding of the previous question, and so on, until you have an understanding of what a person is/was trying to communicate to you and you to them (I meditate on accident, because I have some trouble sleeping). But because of the previous introspection, you are granted multiple levels of thought and can better understand the thoughts behind what people say. I can see how that would lead a person out of ignorance, but I don't think that Buddhism is necessarily the answer. One should not need a security blanket to be introspective.

Acidrain09

All trains of thought are not necessarily ignorant, tagor. Just because someone follows Buddhism, are they ignorant? Just because someone agrees with Karl Marx, is he/she ignorant? Ignorance, in my mind, is setting up a false reality. In this reality, problems (weather they affect you or others) are non-existent. You let yourself be harmed by them, and fail to protect others.

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"A successful man gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do."-Dylan
"Democracy is the road to socialism." -Marx
"Religion is the opiate of the masses." -Marx
"The things you own end up owning you." -Tyler Durden

tagor

Can you quote where I implied that?

I wish the world were so black and white. What is true to you may be false to others. Even then, if a reality, as you put it, can be neither proven true or false then it is neither.

SlowRide

Well regarless of what you believe, be it buddhism or whatever, everyone is ignorant to a degree, because no one knows everything. Somethings you just have to put your faith in, which is why its FAITH, because it cant be proven, you just have to know with in your self its right for you

tagor

Yes, of course, which is why one can only hope to avoid ignorance where applicable.

I personally find faith to be very unsatisfying. To me, it is used as a premature point to stop pondering in order to seemingly simplify living. However, life may be that simple. Can you please explain why you believe that faith is necessary?

TwistableLime

Faith is necessary because it allows those people who are pondering something deep to stop and thus focus on other things in life. While it may in fact be "a premature point to stop pondering in order to seemingly simplify living," one cannot be pondering all day and night unless one attempts to gain a different perspective on the issue- most people cannot come up with solutions to issue if their perspective never changes, they'll just keep running in circles.