How do I disable the default user system or view pages without login? I apologize in advance if I haven't used the proper terminology, but I am very new to working with any CMS, let alone Drupal.

Now... On to the question... 

On the  page, I have a block that explains the purpose of the site, and everything looks fine when I'm signed in, however, once I sign out, I get "Access Denied" on all of my pages &amp; subpages.

For the website I'm building, I have absolutely no need for a user/authentication system at this time. 

How can I disable the user framework, or how can I make all pages visible without having people log in?

Again, sorry for the likely improper terminology... Thanks in advance for your time &amp; help.
It depends on the type of page really, what module provides it, how permissions are implemented by that module - the short answer is by setting correct permissions at /admin/people/permissions. 

You can't disable the user module, it's a required part of Drupal. Conceptually, if you were to disable it you'd have no authentication control over the admin section, and any user could make whatever changes they wanted - obviously that's not a situation that can be allowed to exist for 99.99% of users. And if you do want that, you just need to set up permissions to allow it.

But you can stop users from registering, which avoids that problem. And by setting appropriate permissions you can decide exactly what users (or even groups of users, using the Roles system) can see/do.