I will no longer engage those whose opinions are based entirely on faith in debate about those opinions. I’m afraid that one of these days my head will explode. I’ll supply or lead to information where I can, when someone might actually be interested in real actual truly true facts of truth. But that’s it. Faith is irrational. How is science supposed to compete with that! Facts that just exist on their own!? Amazing!
(Real actual quote, well, er… paraphrase that I encountered recently: “If one so much as suggests that [insert batshit insane claim here] is true without proof that can only be supplied by [insert Evil organization that is covering it up and will therefore never supply that proof], accusations fly of paranoia.”
Yeah, you are indeed being a little bit fucking loony there. How the hell do you argue with crap like this! Where to even begin!? You can’t get proof, but that’s okay, you’re right anyway!? Guh? You’re admitting that you’re full of shit, and that being full of shit is essential to your cause!? And that everyone else is wrongfully accusing you of paranoia because they don’t believe you anyway, despite the fact that you’re admitting that you do not now, and will never have proof? This is where greymatter starts leaking from my ears.)
As far as I can remember, I’ve been a skeptic. I therefore do not have any insight into how one might escape from lunacy. But experience teaches me that no amount of logic can convince someone who is completely dedicated to believing something, no matter how irrational. So no more wasting my time. Ugh.
This leaves me with a problem. How the hell do I escape from conversations initiated by someone else, while defending the honor of Critical Thinking? Won’t it look like complete and utter crap must be true, if I refuse to come up with an argument against it?
And how in the hell do I get people to quit comparing me to a Vulcan. Damn it, I can’t help it if they’re illogical. And it’s just not in my nature to sit there and let them be highly illogical in my vicinity.
Unless I’ve been drinking. If I’ve been drinking, I will gladly participate in some nutty nutjobbery. I’ll be mocking the other participants in my head, but still. It’s an entertaining stretch of the imagination. Damn, the imaginations of some of these kooks make me feel so inferior. Stretched so far that they’re in danger of bursting!
(Let’s see if I hold myself to all of this. Some of these people are just so maddening. I’m not sure if I mean that in the sense that it makes me angry, or the sense that it makes me crazy.)
