Shall we glean noble knowledge through the divination of bloody entrails where the carcass of Truth Molested has been sacrificed?

Truth is always more important to me, personally. No matter how ugly or evil it might be.

Ignorance is bliss…

I really wish I could rewrite history such that the phrase “Ignorance is bliss” is never made popular.

I hate that phrase. To me, ignorance shows that the person is perfectly content in never thinking for themselves, content to live a life where they don’t know what they DO know let alone what they don’t know. Ignorant is one of the worst things a person can choose to be, in my opinion.

Knowledge is power. There is no circumstance where I would prefer to have the truth hidden from me.

I liked the title question better. Too bad you weren’t serious. You would have gotten a very strange answer from me. Better luck next time, and don’t give up before you start.

lol

wtf?

@dynamicduo

I’m sorry to say, but I think “knowledge is power”, in all it’s prosaic glory is in fact overrated.

Knowledge is only as good as the means one has to act on it. As a matter of fact, knowledge without the means to act on it is a constant source of frustration/despair.

I do follow your reasoning, mostly agree even. However, the truth can be more hurtful than many a lie.

I think to answer that I need to bring up another part of the movie. Harvey discusses with Bruce over dinner about when the rome went to war, or during times of crisis, the people entrusted their power to one man, it wasn’t considered a promotion, but an honour and a duty. I think that brings up a valuable point in the problem. In the worst times, great men need to step to the fore front, people need heros to believe in. during that situation, Bruce accepted being the bad guy, because Gotham needed him to be their villian, and they needed Harvey to be their hero, not the other way around.

@TaoSan I’m with Tao on this one. Ommmmmm.

ommmmmmmm. om nom nom nom NOMnomNOm….

sorry got a little distracted there with my crackers.

@TaoSan I found your point to be very interesting to ponder, but I do not agree with it. Just because one doesn’t have the ability to implement the knowledge, doesn’t mean the knowledge is useless. For example, I gain an immense amount of value from understanding our universe and how it came to be, even though I will likely never be able to put any of that knowledge to practical use. The same thing can be said about my views on religion – I have no desire to act on my knowledge at all, nor would I presume to be able to, and I must disagree strongly that this is a source of frustration or despair because for me it is 100% the opposite.

I will admit, it is rough to be an upholder and valuer of truth all the time. At times a lie would indeed be less painful than the truth. But I consider lying, or purposely omitting truth, to inflict an even greater amount of pain than the truth itself. Lying says that the liar believes they are worth more than I am, that their opinion is better than the one I would have generated if I had been given the facts and left to decide for myself.

@dynamicduo if you have no desire to put it to use, wouldn’t that make it useless? short of your own personal satifaction you don’t have apurpose for knowing things such as that, so essentially you’re life is no different(essentially) than how it would be if you didn’t know any of it. In my opinion(stress the opinion) knowledge affords you nothing if you don’t have desire or passion.

@ABoyNamedBoobs03 – But the fact is that my life is different because of the knowledge I have. Understanding how our current universe came to be eliminated the need for me to believe that some supreme being created it, which in turn affected my outlook on religions. This is not an overstatement: I would not be who I am today without the knowledge I have.

Perhaps, by the definition of the word, such knowledge is “useless”. But that does not mean it is “valueless”.

All knowledge is is a tool. There are many things one can do with it, but there is no requirement for using it. I can similarly purchase a hammer with no desire to put it to use, would that make the hammer useless?

But you believe in the explanation of how the universe came to be. You were not there and you did not see it, and you do not see the perpetuation of your beliefs today [you only read journals – you didn’t do the research yourself].

You have to realize that your beliefs about things are just as out there as the next man’s – because you do not know it for yourself – you do not know something until you can replicate the experience.

You understand it – yes – but you do not know it.

You know next to nothing – the majority of your knowledge is another man’s writing and discovery.

There is a supreme difference between knowledge and understanding, and this is it.

@dynamicduo…Your answers, as always, are well put and thought provoking. I agree with you that ignorance is bliss is ridiculous when not used properly.

I don’t think it’s real meaning is the promotion of deliberate obtuseness. I believe it is meant to be taken along more careful what you wish for lines.

@dynamicduo we were discussing it’s usefulness though ;). I agree it isn’t worthless, but knowledge certainly doesn’t equal power.

@squirbel – the one critical difference is that my beliefs have proof. There is tangible scientific data to support the theories regarding the creation of the universe. That is the simple foundation for science, its reproducibility. If I really wanted to, I could dedicate years of my life towards gaining the ability to verify this proof for myself first hand. I could easily observe the stars today, and note the number of red ones, and base an analysis on this, and come to the conclusion that all the planets are moving away from one central location, and have my conclusion verified by heaps of other data.

There is a fundamental difference between believing something because it’s written in a book (ANY book, the Bible or the God Delusion combined) and believing something because you can trace back the claims and determine they are credible, or reproduce the situation on your own. Of course no one will be able to see the universe be created again, so bringing this point into your discussion doesn’t really have any reason. I can say the exact same things about God right back to you. Did you personally see God creating humanity, if this is what you believe? If you didn’t, then how can you believe it?

With all do respects, I don’t have to realize anything that you say. Nor do I have to care if my beliefs are “just as out there as the next man’s” as deemed by you. I’m not here to convince you about anything.

I recognize that you do not have to realize anything I say. But surely you see that that phrase is just a common colloquium of our language, and I did not mean it literally.

Sure, you do not have care if I believe that everyone’s beliefs are equally insane.

And no, you are not here to convince me of anything – you are here to present your ideas and concepts, as I am.

@squirbel I do see the colloquium aspect of it, but what I’m saying is that there are other more eloquent ways you could have phrased your sentence without invoking the colloquium. Combined with the “You know next to nothing” comment, I found the tone of your post to be bold enough to necessitate my closing comment.

I love the question part. The answer is, Yes. Makes it clear where the wankers are.

Honesty is the best policy. Always. With that in mind, tell me truth because I can handle it. Afterwards, we can discuss little white lies and how harmless they can be. We’ll finish up by examining the in’s and out’s of hypocrisy.

I would’ve bet money that this was a RealEyes question before I even got to the “asked by”

@dynamicduo, the poet never asserted that ignorance is bliss. He (Thomas Gray) said ”Where ignorance is bliss, ‘tis folly to be wise,” meaning that in cases where we’re better off not knowing, then being wise is actually foolish. More in this thread.

@Jeruba A sword of veracity is much too heavy in clumsy brutish hands.

@VzzBzz So the answer is yes, we do in fact “glean noble knowledge”, even in those instances where Truth is sacrificed. This suggests a gray area between sacrificing Truth, and outright lying.

@Bluefreedom Very well. I will accept your claim that you can handle Truth. Will you accept my claim that it in no way must be freely offered? Batman earned that particular Truth. The people of Gotham did not earn it.

In a past life, the Nazi demanded to know where my children were hiding. I was under no obligation to tell him anything, yet I knew where they were. Yes, he could have “handled it” if I had freely provided the Truth to him. We had different opinions about “how” to handle the Truth of my children however. Nothing stopped him from earning the Truth for himself.

@squirbel We agree that Truth is most important. I maintain that it must be earned, with no obligation upon the one who accepts it to freely pass it along to another.

Notice I did not say “give” it to another. Truth is not a thing to be possessed. Truth may only be accepted or denied. The one who believes they own the Truth, in actuality, is in possession of a personal truth. A personal truth is nothing more than a personal deception. Truth will not be owned. We do not possess it. Truth possesses us, but only after we have chosen between accepting or denying it.

By accepting Truth, we give ourselves to it. By denying Truth, we claim our own personal deceptions as substitute.

@TaoSan Do you believe that “bliss” is the ultimate goal? Do you equate frustration and despair as equals, to be avoided at all cost?

Although it may not always escort us there, suffering is often the most efficient pathway to attaining strength. Bliss, with all its pleasures, is addictive, and a proven method for realizing meaninglessness.

True enlightenment is manifest through rights of passage, reserved for those who acknowledge the grinding milestones of life.

@Jeruba – thanks for bringing some clarification into the phrase. Sadly, many other people don’t know those origins, and use the phrase “ignorance is bliss” as it stands. A cashier recently told it to me, which caused it to be in my mind this past week.