Atheists: Do the ignorant tend to do more harm? Is being ignorant bad? Why?

Answer 1

ignorance in itself doesn't harm anyone. ignorants with power - now that's a different story.

Answer 2

Ignorance is not inherently harmful as we are all, to a degree harmful. I am certainly ignorant in computer programming and at a guess I'd assume you're ignorant with regards to quantum physics.

The problem is when ignorance is promoted and attempts to remove human ignorance are shunned. That's what many religious people are trying to do with evolution and other things. Creationists try to find gaps in the evolutionary chain and say "That is god's work since we can't explain it!" (Yet anyway). Of course if we had the mentality that anytime there was something totally unknown "It must be evidence of god and his will, don't bother looking into it" we would never have developed any of our modern luxuries. There's a reason civilization/technology/knowledge/etc. was on a sharp decline when christianity was in charge. We went from indoor cooling systems, brain surgery (the ancient Egyptians could do it successfully), amazing things like stonehenge and so on to the dark ages until religion began to relent in 1850 and we immediately began to shoot back up.

The other problem with ignorance is when people use their "holy books" to justify slavery, war, prejudice, hatred, discrimination, and so on. Christianity in particular (though Islam more recently) has a long, illustrious and bloody history of this. When an old book says homosexuality is a sin punishable by death and the religious actively spread misinformation such as that it's a "choice" (totally ignorant of neuroscience which has already long demonstrated noted differences in the brains of homosexuals meaning it's not a choice whatsoever) people use that to justify their hatreds and murder.

So ignorance itself isn't harmful, but when we don't try to rationally explore our ignorance but instead try to follow outdated religious "holy" books to explain the universe, then ignorance becomes the most deadly thing on the planet.

Answer 3

Being ignorant simply means that u ignore the facts on any matter and by doing this u r left with your opinion which can be 100% wrong. This ignorance is enforced by belief and the results are like what has taken place in religion today. A self-righteous mentality based on things which has never been proven.

Being ignorant to yourself is ok if u wanna live like that but when it comes to teaching other people who seek the truth, ignorance can be detrimental

Answer 4

I am not an atheist but that does not change the picture.

BEING ignorant is neither good nor bad in and of itself --
Ignorance is a simple mater of not knowing and can be easily remedied by self education or learning from somebody else.

CHOOSING to be ignorant is quite a different story!

Those who choose to be ignorant can do harm because they are not interested in the truth. They have their own perception and can not be bothered with the facts.

Choosing to be ignorant applies to anybody who is rooted in dogmatism in any way shape or form. Doesn't matter whether that dogma involves belief or disbelief!
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Answer 5

I am an atheist and i am not ignorant i actually envy people who have a religion and something to believe in but i was never brought up with religious surroundings and i would like nothing more than for my children to have something to believe in. I however believe that i was not alive thousands of years ago therefor i feel i do not have the right to tell people who was around and what gods ruled the earth and who didn't that is why i choose not to believe in anything of the nature i believe i am far from ignorant i feel people who try to pressure people in believing their religion are ignorant because they went there they dint know what went on so what gives anyone the right to think they do.

Answer 6

Christians: Do the ignorant tend to do more harm? Is being ignorant bad? Why?

Answer 7

I'm not an athiest. The implied context of your statement is that Athiests are ignorant?

Not so - they simply have different beliefs. If we called everyone 'ignorant' that has different beliefs then we'd be in a lot of trouble.

Harm comes from many different areas. So called 'ignorant' athiests can cause harm when they push their views on other people - but the same could be said when a Catholic pushes their views on a Muslim etc.

So harm is caused by a conceited belief that one's views are the right views....

The sooner this world accepts that there are different views and beliefs in the world, the sooner we can all live together easier...

Answer 8

Ignorance can cause harm. After all, how many things has humanity done to destroy environment, individual species, etc because we were ignorant as to the result. So yes, ignorance can be bad. I don't believe that it is always bad. I just don't know a situation where it would be good.

Answer 9

About what are the people in question ignorant? If a person is ignorant about the chemical makeup of another planet's air, I don't see how they would be more likely to do harm. If a person is ignorant about ethnic or religious differences, then they may be more likely to do harm. This question is too ambiguous to really be answered.

Answer 10

Tough question. I don't feel comfortable agreeing or disagreeing with the statement, since I think it's too general. I imagine the ignorant do harm. I imagine they live harmfully, to themselves and others. But I think that educated, motivated people with willfully ignorant agendas do the most harm.

Answer 11

It depends. Sometimes the ignorant have rituals that save their lives, though sometimes they do not really understand how. Just like burial rituals. Most cultures dispose of their dead... Many think for reasons of curses and such not realizing that it is due to bacteria.

However, at times ignorance leads to rituals that are harmful. In these cases education works wonders.