Get Your Facts Straight
This week has been a very busy week on the Know The Savior Ministries Farm. The first full week with no rain. We grow 8 acres of hay; on Monday we were able to get it cut. This is the first cut for the winter hay. There will be three more cuts before winter comes. Looks like we will have plenty of hay for this winter’s feeding.
The garden beds are all ready, and we started planting, lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, cucumbers, cabbage, spinach, and kale. We did all of that on Monday. Tuesday we spent the time weeding and getting the garden ready for some fresh wood chips. This (Wednesday) morning we planted collards, Chinese cabbage, okra, bush beans, water melon, Korean melon, cantaloupe, tomatoes, and corn. Last week we planted peanuts for the first time!
The holes for the solar framing were dug; solar energy is not that far off. We are excited about the work that is getting done on the farm. With each step we take we are able to cross off that to do list. As I shared with you in the last blog, we have quite a bit to do.
Everything is going pretty well, but we did have one hick-up. In my excitement of learning something new I could do for the garden that will make it function so much better, I didn’t go back and study it carefully for myself. I ran with it before I made sure I understood it. As a result, I killed some of our young vegetable plants. Thankfully it is early in the planting season and I can replant and still have it harvest on time.
I was once told that people who believe things easily without having to be convinced are credulous. A synonym for credulous is gullible, and both terms describe a person who accepts something willingly without a lot of supporting facts. So was I gullible? Yes I was. This made me think about what I read in 1 John 4:1-6
And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit which he has given us. Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are of God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit which does not confess Jesus is not of God. This is the spirit of antichrist, of which you heard that it was coming, and now it is in the world already. Little children, you are of God, and have overcome them; for he who is in you is greater that he who is in the world. They are of the world, therefore what they say is of the world, and the world listens to them. We are of God. Whoever knows God listens to us, and he who is not of God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
I found these statements very interesting from Wikipedia.
“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored”. —Aldous Huxley
Willful ignorance is the state and practice of ignoring any sensory input that appears to contradict one's inner model of reality. At heart, it is almost certainly driven by confirmation bias.
Willful ignorance differs from ordinary “ignorance“ — when someone is simply unaware of something — in that willfully ignorant people are fully aware of facts, resources and sources, but refuse to acknowledge them. Indeed, calling someone "ignorant" shouldn’t really be a pejorative, but intentional and willful ignorance is an entirely different matter. In practice though, the word "ignorance" has often come to mean "willful ignorance", and indeed, in many non-English languages, the word based on the same stem ("ignore") actually carries that meaning.
Willful ignorance is sometimes referred to as tactical stupidity.
Depending on the nature and strength of an individual's pre-existing beliefs, willful ignorance can manifest itself in different ways. The practice can entail completely disregarding established facts, evidence and/or reasonable opinions if they fail to meet one's expectations. Often the willfully ignorant will make excuses, claiming that a source is unreliable, suggesting that an experiment was flawed or asserting that an opinion is too biased. More often than not this is simple circular reasoning: “I cannot agree with that source because it is untrustworthy because it disagrees with me”.
In other slightly more extreme cases, willful ignorance can involve outright refusal to read, hear or study, in any way, anything that does not conform to the willfully ignorant person's worldview.
With regard to oneself, this can even extend to fake locked-in syndrome with complete unresponsiveness. Or with regard to others, to outright censorship of the material from others.
This is a little extreme but hopefully you get the point.
My error or willful ignorance in not checking things out carefully cost me my vegetable plants. A greater loss for us can happen if we allow our willful ignorance to get in the way of our salvation, by believing every spirit, not testing the spirits to see whether they are of God.
I have learned a very good lesson this week. It is very important to check things out carefully before implementing. It cost me a few vegetables; don’t let it cost you your salvation.
