Louis
Posts: 6436
Joined: Jan. 2006
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[Python]
"Who is it? I'm going to have to rush you."
"Oooooh I don't know..............I don't like darkies!"
"AHA AHAHAHAHAHAHA...AHAHAHHAHA...........Who does? Right then Mrs Scum, have you got an answer for us?"
"Oooooh, Henri Bergsen."
"Yes! Well done! The answer was 'Henri Bergsen', you've won the Blow On The Head. Now you can change that if you want. I can offer you a Poke In The Eye?"
"No Michael"
"A Smack In The Mouth?"
"No Michael, I just want the Blow On The Head, please."
"Alright! A Punch To The Throat and a Dagger Up The Clitoris."
"Ooooh, it's very tempting, no, no, I think I'll just go with the Blow On The Head."
"Very well."
{WHACK}
{APPLAUSE}
[/Python]
Hmmm it's a tricky one. I don't like creationists.
I'm going with b).
a) is simply a subset of b), and more people holding these ideas as true fall into b) than a) so answering c) is redundant.
Anyway, a)'s pretty smart for a garden variety untreated mentally ill person who suffers from delusions and hallucinations. Whether I agree with him or not (and I think we all know it's "not") he's acheived a reasonable amount and shouldn't be written off as some mere loon. He's a well qualified and publicly aware, dishonest loon.
As Michael Shermer says at the end of "Why People Believe Weird Things" in a chapter entitled "Why do SMART People Believe Weird Things": it's because they are sufficiently smart to be excellent at rationalising their irrational views, views they held and developed before they started thinking rationally about the relevant issues.
The man's a loon, fair and square, but he's a pretty fucking clever loon. I think we dismiss the clever loons at our peril, not for any threat they might pose (they don't) but because these people are key to getting an insight into the whole process of why there are loons in the first place.
Although, that said, mocking him mercilessly is all good!
Louis
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Bye.
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