IDiocy? or Egnorance?

I haven't forgotten that third part of my dissection of "Our Christian Roots"; it's just a matter of keeping my nausea under control. Seriously. I had to reread a veritable shitload of William McGuffey's work, in order to see whether I could run down some alleged quotations, and in the process turned up some of his letters online. It's amazing what lurks in the various corners of the internet. (And let me note that I post these links as much for my own benefit as for that of anybody else.) It was interesting, in a dull sort of way, and help round out my picture of a guy I never liked that much. I never did find the alleged quotations, by the way, and I doubt very much that they are authentic, but, being me, I'd really like to know where they did come from, and not merely where they didn't.

And somebody at WikiSource screwed up the Gospel of the Hebrews page, and I spent a bit of time trying to clean it up, before I gave up and reverted it to the last reasonable version. No source given, no indication of translator (the all-important question being, are the translations in public domain?), extraneous material added, valid material deleted. A real mess.

Still, my day was somewhat brightened by this ERV post: What Makes an IDiot? It's tempting to blame people for their ignorance, especially when they sound off on a subject on which you, the listener, know a little something. ERV, however, distinguishes between IDiocy and mere ignorance:

But heres the deal. Not knowing what 'eponymous' means doesnt make you an idiot. Not knowing some really, really, really basic facts of evolution and anatomy doesnt make you an idiot.

It just means you dont know something.

I dont know lots of stuff. *shrug* Weve all had different educations and different upbringings. I wont call someone an idiot just for not knowing something, because Id be an 'idiot' on lots of topics too.

What makes one an IDiot is not knowing something, plus being arrogant-- so goddamn arrogant-- you turn up your nose at people who *do* know something, and refuse to learn.

That about sums it up. Read the entry.