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Does fear resulting from knowledge rather than ignorance or the other way around?

  1. I know for a fact if I jump out of the top of a 20 story building I’m going to look like lasagna mixed with squid after I hit the ground. I fear looking like lasagna mixed with squid, for it is ugly. That is from knowledge.
  2. Most fear is based on memory. Burned once, don't want to be burned twice. That's almost all of it. Aside from "ancestral memories" that's it.
  3. When I was younger I was ignorant of the way the world governments operate. I had no fear of them, and even thought they were as they claimed and worked for the betterment of humanity. Now as an older and some say wiser me, I have seen too much of how they really operate, and who they really work for. Now I fear them, and what they do.

I don’t think there is fear of the unknown without something first causing a fear reaction. If you have never been hit, you may expect a touch rather than a punch. But the next time someone goes to touch you, you will then remember the punch and begin to fear the possibility.

Ignorance could indeed lead to not being fearful of things instead. To make it perfectly clear, I’m not saying that ignorance can not lead to fear, in many cases it does. But ignorance is certainly not the root cause of fear.

In Hinduism, fear is the source of all human weakness. Everything negative in our behavior (which is projected into all of society) results from us giving into our fear and attachments. Together with ego and willful ignorance, it makes for a very dysfunctional species.