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Friday, January 31, 1997

IGNORANCE:

We all lack a certain amount of wisdom, so there's no use pointing it outBy Michael Daugherty

I would like to suggest that from this point forward we all endeavor to omit the word "ignorant" and its variant lexical forms from our respective vocabularies. I feel compelled to make this suggestion having just read Michael Tseng's rebuttal to Chieh Chieng's "Questioning Religious Devotion" (Viewpoint, Jan. 16), in which Tseng suggests that Chieng's opinions on Christianity are based on misconceptions, ignorance and false assumptions.

What Tseng seems to suggest here is that Chieng is guilty of ignorance because he doesn't know all the details about Christianity that Tseng knows and thinks Chieng should know. Although I am a Christian, I must admit that I don't know as much about Christianity as Tseng does ­ I certainly can't quote from the Bible as well as he can ­ so, I would assume that by Tseng's standards I'm ignorant as well. But I have a sneaking suspicion that Tseng wouldn't accuse me, a fellow Christian, of being "ignorant." My guess is he would use a somewhat less insulting, somewhat more encouraging word to bring me into his corner of the fold.

I would ask Tseng to answer any one of the following questions: What does the word "Islam" mean in Arabic? Who is Judah Ha-Nasi? What happened under a pipal tree at Bodh Gaya? What are the Upanishads? What is the Tao-te-ching? If Tseng cannot answer every one of these questions, then he is by his own standards just as ignorant as he accuses Chieng of being (In fairness, I used my Encyclopedia in preparing the above questions and would have failed miserably had these same questions been put to me.).

My point is this: We are all ignorant of one thing or another, if not by our own standards, then certainly by someone else's. Since ignorance seems to be a component of the human condition (and I might add, one from which no one is exempt), what do we gain by making a point of it? Would it be unfair for me to suggest that accusing someone of being ignorant is in and of itself an overt act of ... well, you get the point.

Mr. Tseng, when we recall that Christianity is just one of humanity's many religions (let's not forget about Buddhism, Chinese folk religions, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Sikhism, each with at least 10 million adherents) and that on this planet Christians are out-numbered two-to-one by non-Christians, and then we consider how little we know about the religions to which we are not devotees, we just might want to think twice about our accusatory use of the "i" word. "Judge not ..."