Many religions regard ignorance as the cause of evil in human life. Being ignorant of God and the purpose of life, people’s values become confused, and consequently, they act wrongly.
The apostle Paul taught that ignorance of God lay at the root of all forms of license and immorality. In Islam, it is called “forgetting God,” causing people to deviate from the path and lose their souls. In Buddhism, this ignorance leads to grasping after self and begets delusion (moha).
Many scriptures warn against the illusory goals and vanities that infect worldly life. In their search for knowledge, people have embraced various philosophies, yet it is clear that none of them has illuminated the truth one hundred percent.
Oftentimes, valid insights are mixed with false views, leading to confusion and conflict over values, to skepticism and even atheism. This, too is the result of humanity’s fundamental ignorance, whose source stems from the Human Fall, according to Father Moon.
As a prophet of the twentieth century who lived through the struggle with communism, he is particularly concerned about this contemporary form of ignorance. The concluding passages describe humanity’s spiritual blindness. They describe ignorance as a veil that obscures the faculty of insight.
The Buddha used metaphors such as moths drawn to perish in a lamp to represent people’s attraction to the illusory vanities of this world.
In Hinduism and Jainism, this blindness (avidya) is what binds people to the wheel of birth-and-death (samsara), binding them to sense pleasures instead of seeking Reality itself.
Plato’s famous Myth of the Cave speaks to this topic. Father Moon likewise describes a pervasive delusion, born of the Human Fall, that leaves human beings blind to spiritual truth and totally unable to know God’s inner heart.
Ignorance of God
Be not like those who forget God, and therefore He made them forget their own souls! Qur’an 59.19
Although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man or birds or animals or reptiles. Therefore, God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. Romans 1.21-25
The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are all corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is none that does good. The Lord looks down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there are any that act wisely, that seek after God. They have all gone astray, they are all alike corrupt; there is none that does good, no, not one. Have they no knowledge, all the evildoers who eat up my people as they eat bread, and do not call upon the Lord? Psalm 14.1-4
Whoever wants to do some evil against another does not remember God. Proverb (African Traditional Religions)
He who does not clearly understand Heaven will not be pure in virtue. He who has not mastered the Way will find himself without any acceptable path of approach. He who does not understand the Way is pitiable indeed! Chuang Tzu 11 (Taoism)
No man lies to his neighbor until he has denied the Root. It happened once that Rabbi Reuben was in Tiberias on the Sabbath, and a philosopher asked him, “Who is the most hateful man in the world?” He replied, “The man who denies his Creator.” “How so?” asked the philosopher.
Rabbi Reuben answered, “‘Honor thy father and thy mother, thou shalt not murder, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor, thou shalt not covet.’ No man denies the derivative [the Ten Commandments] until he has previously denied the Root [God], and no man sins unless he has denied Him who commanded him not to commit that sin.” Tosefta Shevuot 3.6 (Judaism)
The demonic do things they should avoid and avoid the things they should do. They have no sense of uprightness, purity, or truth. “There is no God,” they say, “no truth, no spiritual law, no moral order. The basis of life is sex; what else can it be?” Holding such distorted views, possessing scant discrimination, they become enemies of the world, causing suffering and destruction.
Hypocritical, proud, and arrogant, living in delusion and clinging to deluded ideas, insatiable in their desires, they pursue their unclean ends. Although burdened with fears that end only with death, they still maintain with complete assurance, “Gratification of lust is the highest that life can offer.”
Bound on all sides by scheming and anxiety, driven by anger and greed, they amass by any means they can a hoard of money for the satisfaction of their cravings. “I got this today,” they say; “tomorrow I shall get that. This wealth is mine, and that will be mine too. I have destroyed my enemies. I shall destroy others too! Am I not like God? I enjoy what I want. I am successful. I am powerful.
I am happy. I am rich and well-born. Who is equal to me? I will perform sacrifices and give gifts, and rejoice in my own generosity.” This is how they go on, deluded by ignorance. Bound by their greed and entangled in a web of delusion, whirled about by a fragmented mind, they fall into a dark hell. Bhagavad-Gita 16.7-16 (Hinduism)
Teachings of Sun Myung Moon
Humanity fell into ignorance of God at its beginning, and we are still ignorant of God today. We do not know God, God’s ideal of creation, or the family that was to be the basis of our fulfillment.
For this reason, everything goes wrong. Human life, from the family level to the world level, is a mess. (325:220, July 1, 2000)
Many people think that food, clothing and survival are the chief ends of life. Of course, they do develop some good elements through moral human relationships with each other.
However, the standards of their morality and social arrangements differ according to culture and background. Hence, while everyone has an innate desire to establish the original standard of morality, we face the reality that existing moralities and ways of life are scattered in many directions.
There is no consensus about it—this is a problem. People are unsure about their ultimate destination after earthly life is finished. They are uncertain about the existence of the spirit world. They are even ignorant of the existence of God. (140:122-23, February 9, 1986)
When people believe there is nothing after death, they want to experience everything they possibly can of earthly life. They want to excel everyone else in building an ideal environment for themselves before they die.
They want to do something significant on the world stage and to experience all manner of relationships. Inevitably, their life becomes nothing but the pursuit of physical pleasure. That is why in affluent countries like the United States today, ethics and morality have all become decadent.
The loss of values is serious, even to the extent that people reject their historical traditions and destroy the family structure of parents, siblings, husband and wife.
In their pursuit of physical pleasures, people throw away what is needed for lasting relationships. Children pursue these pleasures and their parents oppose; husbands seek them out and their wives object. People lose the desire to marry as life becomes more casual every day. (172:15-16, January 3, 1988)
Adam and Eve fell into a state of ignorance: ignorant of the ideal world of oneness and ignorant of God’s purpose to realize that world. Born as descendants of ancestors who fell into ignorance, we also do not know where we are supposed to go. (140:14, February 1, 1986)
If we are created in such a way that we cannot live apart from God, then surely our ignorance of God consigns us to walk miserable paths. Although we may diligently study the Bible, can we claim that we really know the reality of God? Can we ever grasp the heart of God? (Exposition of the Divine Principle, Introduction)
Religions have helped fallen people gradually overcome their spiritual ignorance by stimulating their latent original mind to activity. They have been teaching people to focus their lives on the invisible, causal world of God.
Since not everyone feels an immediate need for religion, only a few exceptional people attain spiritual knowledge rapidly. For the vast majority, spiritual growth remains a slow process.
We see this from the fact that even today, with religions widespread throughout the world, people’s spiritual level is often no better than that of people in ancient times. (Exposition of the Divine Principle, Parallels 7.2.2)
Ask young people whether they really love God. If they are honest, their answer must be “No.” Why? Because their views are different from God’s. Young people like to enjoy their life, indulging in free sex and drugs, but God does not allow it. As long as they are doing those things, they cannot say they love God. (91:22, January 16, 1977)
False Views
Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Isaiah 5.20
Beings who are ashamed of what is not shameful, and are not ashamed of what is shameful, embrace wrong views and go to a woeful state. Beings who see fear in what is not to be feared, and see no fear in the fearsome, embrace false views and go to a woeful state. Beings who imagine faults in the faultless and perceive no wrong in what is wrong, embrace false views and go to a woeful state. Dhammapada 316-18 (Buddhism)
Whenever people are deceived and their notions are at variance with reality, it is clear that the error slips in through resemblances [to reality]. Plato, Phaedrus (Hellenism)
When the Tao was lost, there was virtue;24 When virtue was lost, there was benevolence; When benevolence was lost, there was rectitude; When rectitude was lost, there were rules of propriety. Propriety is a wearing thin of loyalty and good faith, And the beginning of disorder. Tao Te Ching 38 (Taoism)
Teachings of Sun Myung Moon
Philosophers, saints and sages set out to pave the way of goodness for the people of their times. Yet so many of their accomplishments have become added spiritual burdens for the people of today.
Consider this objectively. Has any philosopher ever arrived at the knowledge that could solve humanity’s deepest anguish? Has any sage ever clearly illuminated the path by resolving all the fundamental questions of human life and the universe? Have not their teachings and philosophies raised more unsettled questions, thus giving rise to skepticism? (Exposition of the Divine Principle, Introduction)
Despite the fact that human beings are meant to live attending God as their Parent and to follow His guidance day by day, many people are ignorant of God’s existence.
Taking one more step, they proclaim, “God is dead.” More and more, God is being removed from human society. Who made such a world, God or human beings? (135:268, December 15, 1985)
Serious problems are rampant in society, including the confusion of value systems, moral corruption, drug addiction, terrorism, racial discrimination, unequal distribution of wealth, atheistic communism, violations of human rights, war and genocide.
These evils, which threaten humanity’s destruction, are the inevitable consequences of atheistic materialism, secular humanism and hedonism, which have at their core the rejection of God. All these are the effects of the declining faith and spiritual exhaustion of this generation. (135:221, November 16, 1985)
I am not one to condemn humanism altogether, but the problem with the humanism we see today is that it is based on a thoroughly atheistic outlook. Once we deny the existence of God and the significance of the Creator’s creative acts, human beings are reduced to just a handful of dust. It is a perspective that considers human beings no better than mere machines.
This was precisely the fallacy in Marxist-Leninism. If we say there is no God and that human beings are no better than machines or animals, then there is no basis for morality.
Without a belief in the spirit and eternal life, people cease to feel responsible for each other and commit atrocities against other human beings. (234:232, August 22, 1992)
Sun Myung Moon
Spiritual Blindness and Delusion
The unbelievers… are like the depths of darkness In a vast deep ocean, Overwhelmed with billow, Topped by billow, Topped by dark clouds: Depths of darkness, One above another: If a man stretches out his hand, he can hardly see it! For any to whom God gives not light, There is no light! Qur’an 24.40
Blind is this world. Few are those who clearly see. As birds escape from a net, few go to a blissful state. Dhammapada 174 (Buddhism)
This vast universe is a wheel, the wheel of Brahman. Upon it are all creatures that are subject to birth, death, and rebirth. Round and round it turns, and never stops. As long as the individual self thinks it is separate from the Lord, it revolves upon the wheel in bondage to the laws of birth, death, and rebirth… The Lord supports this universe, which is made up of the perishable and the imperishable, the manifest and the unmanifest. The individual soul, forgetful of the Lord, attaches itself to pleasure and thus is bound. Svetasvatara Upanishad 1.6-8 (Hinduism)
On a certain occasion the Exalted One was seated in the open air, on a night of inky darkness, and oil lamps were burning. Swarms of winged insects kept falling into these oil lamps and thereby met their end, came to destruction and utter ruin.
Seeing this, the Exalted One saw the meaning in it and uttered this verse of uplift, They hasten up and past, but miss the real; a bondage ever new they cause to grow. Just as the flutterers fall into the lamp, so some are bent on what they see and hear. Udana 72 (Buddhism)
To the pure all things are pure, but to the corrupt and unbelieving, nothing is pure; their very minds and consciences are corrupted. Titus 1.15
The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the likeness of God. 2 Corinthians 4.4
Fools dwelling in darkness, but thinking themselves wise and erudite, go round and round, by various tortuous paths, like the blind led by the blind. Katha Upanishad 1.2.5 (Hinduism)
The soul is only able to view existence through the bars of a prison, and not in her own nature; she is wallowing in the mire of all ignorance. Philosophy sees the terrible nature of her confinement, and that the captive through desire is led to conspire in her own captivity. Plato, Phaedo (Hellenism)
Teachings of Sun Myung Moon
Are any among you caught in the abyss of despair? You have no connection whatsoever to the ideal world. Are you in such darkness that you cannot distinguish front from back, left from right, up from down?
Amidst your confused, turbulent and disorderly lives, you have forgotten the center and continue to violate Heaven’s laws and principles. As long as this is the case, you cannot make any connection with God’s ideal Garden. (2:246, June 9, 1957)
The world has become a wretched place, far from God’s presence. Yet humanity to this day lives in ignorance of this. People are deluded into believing that the lineage of the enemy is the lifeline upon which the world depends.
This is the wretched truth about humanity descended from the Fall. That is why we refer to this world as hell on earth. God views humanity’s tragic situation with a heart full of pain. (September 12, 2005)
Most of the six billion people in the world are blind. Though they appear normal, they cannot see even an inch in front of themselves. But this does not keep people from acting as though they are philosophers and theologians who understand the truth of Heaven. It has been this way throughout history, and it has caused God much grief. (May 1, 2004)
With the Fall of the first human ancestors, human beings were cast into a hopeless hell from which they cannot escape by their efforts alone. They should have become true owners, true parents and true kings and queens, who communicate directly with God through their five spiritual senses and freely exercise dominion over all things through their five physical senses; thus they were to be God’s representatives to both the spirit world and the physical world.
But due to the Fall their five spiritual senses became largely paralyzed. They fell into a state similar to that of a blind man whose sightless eyes appear normal to an observer.
Forced to live mainly by their five physical senses, they became only half human. They could not see God, or see Him only dimly. They could barely hear His voice or feel His touch. So how could they experience His love as their own Parent or know His suffering heart? (January 27, 2004)
The greatest sorrows of humankind are: our inability to form a relationship with Thy love, the loss of our original conscience, which could communicate with Thy heart, and our inability to harmonize our minds and bodies, which would enable us to live in accordance with our conscience and Thy heart.
Because of the Fall, the sensibility by which we could communicate with Thy heart left us, and the mind which could love all things through experiencing Thy heart is no longer with us. (6:298-99, June 14, 1959)
Sun Myung Moon