Here’s a hard-earned lesson from years of debating Christians and creationists, all summed up in one lovely cartoon.
“I’m not interested in proving you wrong. Just in shutting you up.”
Oglaf
The zealots don’t care about logic and reason, they just pretend to care, for the rubes. You’re not going to be able to logic your way past their arguments because they’re not founded on logic in the first place. Their goal is to put on a show for their fellow travelers, to distract you, and eventually, to acquire the power they need to silence you.
Don’t be like the heretic in the cartoon, only realizing their game when they’ve got you tied to the stake.
So burn the zealots before they burn us?
Walter Solomon @ 1
Exactly. That is why the assholes fear the Jewish space lasers.
@ 2, 3
Careful, there are a lot of people here who think that backwards naval gazers and latter-day primitive knuckle-draggers just need hugs and a vegan diet rather than a beat down.
Seems wasteful to dispose of a perfectly healthy human in that way just because they found a flaw in your thinking. Why not put them to some use and enslave them for the rest of their lives. That at least has biblical precedent. Plus, how unenlightened they are contributing to their own demise through the release of greenhouse gasses.
Walter Solomon @ 1
Um,… no. Oppose them and remain honest with ourselves and others. (How sweet that makes me sound! I’m not. I’m ordinary and make mistakes and have faults.)
You can’t negotiate with liars.
Also. you’re an asshole for writing that,
map61: burning biomass is carbon neutral.
numerobis, not if the wood would have otherwise remained sequestered in the lignin.
Sure, burning fossil fuels adds to the atmospheric (and oceanic) carbon load, but not burning wood prevents the carbon in it from entering the atmosphere. And we know wood can last for thousands of years, unburned.
All xenophobic authoritarians seem to share that attitude, fascists come to mind.
I wonder what the most effective response is.
Bob Altemeyer in “The Authoritarians” was saying that they like to think themselves as “normal”, so maybe insult them from an angle that makes them feel cat off from the rest of humanity?
The goal is not to redeem them, the goal is to make them feel ashamed of their ideas so that they go in a corner and stop poisoning the discourse.
Credit where credit is due – that priest is remarkably honest. No actual zealot would ever admit they’re not interested in proving you wrong, just in shutting you up.
@5
From one asshole to another, thank you for the compliment.