There is a scene in the first "Smokey and the Bandit" movie where Burt Reynolds (Bandit) and Sally Fields (Frog) are strolling in a woods having a conversation while taking a break from evading Sheriff Justice. She is from New York City and is a wanna-be chorus line dancer. He, of course, is a Southern redneck. She starts talking about different composers and others in the New York theater scene and naturally, he doesn't know who any of these people are. Then he turns the tables on her and starts naming NASCAR drivers and country music stars and it is her turn to admit defeat. Says Bandit with his ****-eating grin, "I guess ignorance is just a matter of what part of the country you are from."
The funny thing is, I recognized all of the people Sally Fields named and most of the ones Burt Reynolds named, so I don't know where that puts me. But I understand where he is coming from. It's not only a matter of what part of the country, it's also socioeconomic class, occupation, religion. There's lots of times when I feel like I am having a Bandit and Frog conversation, with no common ground. This happens most often in religious settings. They are talking about people I don't know and I am talking about people they don't know.
But there is another kind of ignorance, and that is the ignorance that comes by making assumptions instead of checking out the facts. This is the kind of ignorance that Anna Sewell in "Black Beauty" called "the worst thing in the world next to wickedness and which causes the most mischief" she was hard to say. It is so easy to assume. But you know what they say about it making an ass out of you and me.
When people glory in their ignorance, it scares me. And there are far too many "Christians" who do just that. They send e-mails to forward on without ever bothering to fact-check their contents and worse, without bothering to find out if these e-mails are contaminated with malware. I just finished reading a book on the "Conficker worm". The author talks about people whose eyes glaze over when the discussion gets technical regarding computers. I am guilty as charged. I know slightly more about how my car engine operates than my computer, which isn't much. Nobody seems to know as yet what the purpose of this "Conficker worm" is, but whoever was behind it knew what they were doing. It hasn't quite sunk in despite 9/11 that there are some really, really malicious evil people in this world and they not only have the intent to do massive harm, they also have the capability. Yet people squawk about security measures taking away their freedom.
People often tell me how smart I am, and they don't always mean it as a positive thing. What they don't realize is that knowledge is a matter of choosing what information to put in your head. Ignorance is relative, but not all information is equal.
The funny thing is, I recognized all of the people Sally Fields named and most of the ones Burt Reynolds named, so I don't know where that puts me. But I understand where he is coming from. It's not only a matter of what part of the country, it's also socioeconomic class, occupation, religion. There's lots of times when I feel like I am having a Bandit and Frog conversation, with no common ground. This happens most often in religious settings. They are talking about people I don't know and I am talking about people they don't know.
But there is another kind of ignorance, and that is the ignorance that comes by making assumptions instead of checking out the facts. This is the kind of ignorance that Anna Sewell in "Black Beauty" called "the worst thing in the world next to wickedness and which causes the most mischief" she was hard to say. It is so easy to assume. But you know what they say about it making an ass out of you and me.
When people glory in their ignorance, it scares me. And there are far too many "Christians" who do just that. They send e-mails to forward on without ever bothering to fact-check their contents and worse, without bothering to find out if these e-mails are contaminated with malware. I just finished reading a book on the "Conficker worm". The author talks about people whose eyes glaze over when the discussion gets technical regarding computers. I am guilty as charged. I know slightly more about how my car engine operates than my computer, which isn't much. Nobody seems to know as yet what the purpose of this "Conficker worm" is, but whoever was behind it knew what they were doing. It hasn't quite sunk in despite 9/11 that there are some really, really malicious evil people in this world and they not only have the intent to do massive harm, they also have the capability. Yet people squawk about security measures taking away their freedom.
People often tell me how smart I am, and they don't always mean it as a positive thing. What they don't realize is that knowledge is a matter of choosing what information to put in your head. Ignorance is relative, but not all information is equal.
