[extropy-chat] Putting God to Rest.

[Damien Broderick]

At 06:20 PM 4/24/2007 -0400, John K Clark wrote:
>[Lee:]
> >Your statements above are simply and totally stupid,
> > reflecting complete ignorance of psychology.
> > Moreover, they're insipid and ultimately meaningless,
> > being nothing more than empty rhetoric and name-calling.
>
>If I'd said that there would be howls of protest, demands that I be expelled
>from the list, and that ridiculously pompous phrase "ad hominem" would be
>flying all over the place....
>
>...I loved the way the insults came right after your
>impassioned plea that we should all be polite to each other; it really did
>have a delightful Hofstadter sort of feel to it, like "this sentence is
>false".

The trouble with satire is that sometimes it is taken as 
straight-faced declaration.

Surely Lee was (a) engaging in a droll but seriously-intended 
reductio ad absurdum (another pompous phrase, sorry) a.k.a. "How do 
*you* like it, buster, eh?" and/or (b) taking the piss.

Damien Broderick