My Ignorance

I am not writing this piece to point any fingers, nor to define Ignorance as perceived by anyone else but myself.  For you see I have come to the conclusion or better yet the realization that I myself have been an ignorant person.  In fact I think I may have always been ignorant to the views and opinions of most people I have met since as far back as I can and wish to remember.  Never before have I even tried to understand the feelings of others when listening to their points of views on a particular subject matter that I disagreed with.  I have always regarded my own opinions and views to be completely rational.  I have also had very dogmatic opinions on other peoples emotional and apparently unbalanced perceptions on their so called irrational views on religion, faith, supernatural phenomenon and any other foolish notions they attempted to tell me as an understanding for their meaning of life, as if my supposedly “concrete” views could explain it any better, and yet this is exactly the stance I always took with great pride or as I think of it now, with “great ignorance”.

Do you believe in God/s?  Do you believe in ghosts?  How about Karma?  Miracles?  Do you believe in destiny or that things in life “good or bad” happen for a reason?  When I actually sat down to analyze these things and my views related to them I realized that I had it completely wrong for all these years.  I was looking at it from an irrelevant standpoint.  We all know that some of these things can cause harm if people believe them so blindly without even thinking whether there’s a logical explanation for the purpose or cause of a certain situation.  This is when others can take advantage and manipulate good people for their own evil gain, but I have no intention of getting into that now.
What I am here to talk about is when others like myself look at these beliefs and the people who live there lives in accordance to them, as being weak, irrational, naive, gullible and even darn right stupid.  I must admit, this is the view I have taken on many occasion and one that I am happy to say will not be happening again anytime soon.  For you see, I realized that, compassion, love, respect and comfort among other wonderful traits are born out of having a belief in something bigger and more spectacular than we could have ever imagined.

I used to label myself an Atheist and although I am still a non-believer in supernatural phenomena, I am not qualified to be the judge and jury on what other people’s belief s should be or what they represent to that person.  If a person feels comfort in knowing that their loved ones have passed on to a better place and that they will get to see them again some day, am I not the ignorant fool if I try to convince them otherwise. If a person believes in Karma does it not make them more consciously aware of how they treat others?  What about a person who believes in miracles?  Is it not ignorant to believe that miracles don’t happen every day?  To try and define others as being irrational based on my own interpretation of life makes me no better than any other low life who tries to manipulate the same people for his or her own personal gain.

Every single person has a right to believe in whatever they want to without having to be subjected to small minded people like myself who like to push their opinions onto others without even considering the other persons feelings.  I intend to be more sympathetic and more understanding in regard to the issues laid out in the above and to treat everyone with the respect they deserve.