| You're All Ignorant by Jason Prentice Ahlquist
MarsDust Publisher That's right. You heard me. You're all ignorant chumps. Fucking morons. Stupid, slow minded primates. But that's okay. I am too. This isn't just my opinion. It's a cold, hard fact. It's backed up by the most overwhelming data that all major worldviews on the planet throughout history seem to agree with. The universe is big and we are tiny. I don't care if you're a hard-science atheist, a Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Pagan, Frisbetarian*, Wiccan, Scientologist, agnostic, Thalamic priestess, or so-called Satanist. Check out whatever textbook you think describes the space and time we live in - they all basically agree on the same general human-to-everything-else ratio. We're a drop in the whole freakin' ocean and there's no way we can hold even some - let alone all of the stuff around us in our mind at once. Think about that and you can come up with only one realistic assessment of our level of wisdom: it ain't there. We're all ignorant by nature. We can't even understand all the stuff that goes on under our own skin. I don't know why I do or say half the shit I do. Heck, I just called you all morons. That wasn't very smart. So how can I expect to know what's going on under the skin of my neighbor, or how my neighborhood works or my planet or the rest of the universe? I don't. I just pay as much attention as possible and do the best I can. With practice I can master the tiny things around me, but if I had a dime for every time I was dead wrong - well you know how the saying goes. I hate it when I'm wrong. I hate it so much, I'll pretend to be right as long as I can. That's when I'm dangerous. I've got a huge ego. Just like all loudmouth egomaniacs I rage against anything that challenges my ultimate infallibility. I'm such a moron. I always forget about that ratio of me to the universe. Sound familiar? If I hear another loudmouth egomaniac challenge the notion that Islam is a religion of peace or that Christians are greedy crusaders or call Wicca a devil worshiping cult or say that homosexuality is against the will of God and then act on those sentiments by producing a string of victims I'll - well what can I do? Hell, I don't know. Sure, the Koran and the Bible have a lot of violent and intolerant verses. So does a lot of stuff that gets written. Didn't I just call you a fucking moron? Had we been in a bar with a few beers in us, there might be a little knuckle-to-face action going on right now. Wicca has nothing to do with the Christian devil and I have yet to be convinced that any real Wiccan practice has ever led to any human sacrifice like those ignorant chimps in the Tennessee legal system tried accuse the West Memphis Three of. But I've known a few Wiccan spousal abusers. Maybe same-gender love is against the will of some God somewhere. It sounds ridiculous to me, but what do I know? I'm little more than a stupid monkey. But listen up Jerry Falwell: shouldn't you leave the consequences of that to your God? Oh sure you'll tell the world you're sad about Mathew Shepherd and that nobody should ever do that. Your ego is like mine and will never admit your part in keeping your devil supplied with plenty of excuses for off-kilter, violent people to murder, rape and oppress. You've been very ignorant. Hey nothing wrong with that. But if you can just admit that as you natural state - and try to live by that unassailable truth - maybe your role in relation to the will of your God would look very different to you. "Hey wait-a-minute Jason," I can almost hear you thinking this now, "this is a fandom 'zine. This is all cool, but what does it have to do with fandom?" Good question. The easy answer is that my massive, insufferable ego will let me believe I can write whatever I want in my column. No matter how much I like the sound of that, it's a pretty lame reason. I could point out how many fans are Wiccans and Pagans or Christians, Scientologists or Muslims. Heck the presence of the Gaylaxians at just about every sci-fi convention I attend should be enough for me to remind myself and everyone else that tolerance starts with admitting that we are ignorant about how the universe really works.
Some of you will argue that tolerance is overrated and even dangerous - the strategy of the weak. And those arguments, when properly examined, have some validity. The tolerant and peaceful have very often been steamrolled by the hateful and violent. And one can argue that it goes against the law of the jungle. Well, that sounds right… hey wait-a-minute. There I go again - thinking that a few anecdotes observed on one planet by a few million people over a few thousand years adds up to an ultimate universal truth about how everything works now or could possibly ever work. We think we have the answer because science observes something a few thousand times over a few years or a bunch of unquestioning faithful have said that the book is right over a few hundred or thousand years. And maybe we're right. I don't know. But if you wanna play with the small numbers and pretend they're really big, then think of this. When you look at two approaches to life: tolerance versus hard-heartedness, and trace them both over our truly insignificant history on this planet, which one of the two have the happiest adherents? Heck forget that - which one has the smallest body count? When I think of that, it seems pretty simple. But then again, I'm still playing that game. I'm still looking at numbers that are insignificant on the universe's scal and pretending that they are big and powerful figures. If I had all the data available and had the capapbility to understand what was in my grasp, would it still be that simple? I don't know, but this is all I have, so I just have to make my ignorant choice. I pray to the Great Fisbee™ Roof that it is the best choice. *Frisbeetarianism is the belief system, attributed to Alex Evans that when we die we all turn into Frisbees, water rockets, baseballs and other airborn toys. We are then hurled from Earth by 3rd grade angels and get stuck on the roof of Heaven forever. If you were bad, you become a kite stuck in a tree, ripped apart by sadistic branches and tortured by high voltage lines. It sound silly, but the point is that nobody is sure what happens after we die. Therefore, I hold the Frisbetarian in as much esteem as any other believer. | 
