I am not going to dispute the contention that “knowing more is good”. However, I think people’s opinions are often worth hearing, and I think people with interesting ideas about politics/philosophy or religion often don’t say what they are thinking because they have some idea that “I need to complete several volumes of recommended reading before my opinions matter”—which they don’t. I have had really interesting conversations with younger people (18ish) who produce fascinating ideas—they don’t know that their pet-theory of a better political system is 1/3rd far-right, 1/3rd soft-left and 1/3rd just weird. They have never head the name “Marx”, even though they seem to be advancing something close to his theory of value. But if they had “done the reading first” they would have probably gone tribal and I wouldn’t have seen such interesting positions.
This is a long-winded way of saying that if you have something interesting to say I think you should say it, rather than waiting until you are better read. Its also gets you forward faster. These agnostics/atheists you quote got to the answers they didn’t know they needed by rocket-ship. Had they scholar-ed in circles they would have to get lucky to hit those nuggets nearly so fast.
I am not going to dispute the contention that “knowing more is good”. However, I think people’s opinions are often worth hearing, and I think people with interesting ideas about politics/philosophy or religion often don’t say what they are thinking because they have some idea that “I need to complete several volumes of recommended reading before my opinions matter”—which they don’t. I have had really interesting conversations with younger people (18ish) who produce fascinating ideas—they don’t know that their pet-theory of a better political system is 1/3rd far-right, 1/3rd soft-left and 1/3rd just weird. They have never head the name “Marx”, even though they seem to be advancing something close to his theory of value. But if they had “done the reading first” they would have probably gone tribal and I wouldn’t have seen such interesting positions.
This is a long-winded way of saying that if you have something interesting to say I think you should say it, rather than waiting until you are better read. Its also gets you forward faster. These agnostics/atheists you quote got to the answers they didn’t know they needed by rocket-ship. Had they scholar-ed in circles they would have to get lucky to hit those nuggets nearly so fast.