HEY EVERYONE!!! You don't know that!!!

[lovemysoldier]

LMS, I appreciate that. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

'tis ok. We all make mistakes. I think it is kind of funny that I mistook a thread geared towards recognizing our mistakes. I love how God has a sense of humor.

 

[gluadys]

Im not getting offended unless someone outright implies that Im stupid just becuase Im a YEC or something.

Sometimes, even this is not a reason to take offence.

I would be offended too, if someone said I was stupid.

But unfortunately we have a word in English which is often used as a synonym of stupid and ought not to be. That word is "ignorant".

"Ignorant" doesn't really mean "stupid" at all. It comes from the Greek for "not" + "know" and refers to someone who doesn't know something. And of course, since no one other than God knows all, we are all ignorant in some way. Everyone of us can point to fields of knowledge we know little or nothing about.

"stupid" OTOH implies that one cannot even learn something. Probably some people are stupid too, but I don't see them often on these boards. Many of the people I disagree with most profoundly are clearly not stupid at all. But, I still find that they can be ignorant.

A person can be a genius and still be ignorant. A person can have a PhD and still be ignorant. In fact, a PhD may be especially ignorant. It's been said that an expert is a person who knows more and more about less and less. And a PhD is a highly qualified expert in his/her field. Outside that field they may be incredibly ignorant.

Given the many misunderstandings we see about evolution on these boards, I think it is fair to say to some people "You don't know what you are talking about. You are ignorant of the facts/theory/evidence."

That does NOT mean you are stupid. It is not intended to be an insult to your intelligence.

But because we carelessly use "ignorant" as a synonym of "stupid" it sounds like an insult.

So what I would ask, if someone comes across as implying you are stupid, don't take offence too quickly. What s/he may really be saying is not that you are stupid but that you need to investigate the matter more thoroughly to get a better grip on it.

And btw, that also goes in reverse when TEs display ignorance about YEC or OEC or ID. I've been putting a lot of time into researching ID lately, because I knew I was pretty ignorant about it.

I haven't changed my mind about it, but now I know why I disagree from my own research instead of depending on talkorigins to do it for me.