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Suffering fools gladly

sackett

Barely Tolerated Lampooneer
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Do you suffer fools gladly? Don't be too quick to say no.

First, it's a biographer's cliché; time and again we read of someone ". . . and he didn't suffer fools gladly." (The cliché seems to involve tacking the phrase onto the end of a sentence. Odd.) I've read this assertion in a biography of Einstein - a biography that also included an account of how Einstein would sometimes buy Immanuel Velikovsky a cup of coffee and then sit listening while that arch-dolt babbled his theories. Now that's suffering a fool like mother used to make!

Second, a number of people on this forum treat fools very patiently. To be sure, they're taking advantage of an opportunity to counter bad arguments, an agreeable activity for people with a teaching bent, but they do it repeatedly. Months go by, and there's Upchurch and RussDill and CWL and Zero and the others, arguing away with Impacted Ion, Yacckus, and the incomparable LiteGrater. Cleopatra is especially kind and forbearing, right up until she slits their throats in the nicest way. (Well, okay, Zero can get acidulous after futilely responding to a few dozen brain-dead posts, but that's a lot more glad suffering than most of us are capable of.)

My point? That impatience with a fool isn't all that admirable. Before you can judge a man foolish, you have to hear him out. And after hearing his case, you have to counter it and see how he takes your refutation. A fool will receive contradiction badly; I think you could even judge the depth of his folly by the degree of his effrontery and offensiveness in reply.

Do I suffer a fool gladly? H*ll no! I blow my nose on them. Nattering nincompoops.
 
sackett said:
Do I suffer a fool gladly? H*ll no! I blow my nose on them. Nattering nincompoops.
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It's sometimes funnier, in a Schadenfreude kind of way, just to give them rope.
 
I admit it, I don't have the patience for this stuff. I can be extremely patient with other things, like kids, getting stuck in the traffic, watching GWB speak, etc. But not this. If I am terribly wrong and there is hell, then this will be my personal hell.

Before you can judge a man foolish, you have to hear him out. And after hearing his case, you have to counter it and see how he takes your refutation. A fool will receive contradiction badly; I think you could even judge the depth of his folly by the degree of his effrontery and offensiveness in reply.
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I'm with you so far. But what if this keeps happening day after day, month after month, year after year, with the same "arguments" and the same "answers" ? Is there a limit to it ? If I leave this board and come back after 20 years, will I find lifegazer arguing with RussDill over the existence of God ? Doesn't it end somewhere ? Shouldn't it ?
 
El Greco said:
I'm with you so far. But what if this keeps happening day after day, month after month, year after year, with the same "arguments" and the same "answers" ? Is there a limit to it ?
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I agree. I have been on the internet for about 13 years now, in some version or another, reading discussion groups. Started in sci.skeptic and then moved onto alt.atheism when that got boring. Then alt.atheism got boring, because, after a while, you see the same arguments over and over again. Just when that gets over, someone new comes in with the same old crap and same old arguments. And then the same old discussion follows.

Yeah, there is the possibility that something new might come along, but it isn't likely. Usually it's just some rehash of Pascal's wager or something of that ilk. Sorry, I don't feel like waiting around listening to it when that is where it is going to end up. After being around this stuff for a while, you get to know most of the discussion topics pretty well, and all the ins and outs. In fact, I would venture to guess that even though I know it's flawed, I could probably argue Pascal's wager better than most theists (mainly, because I know the big flaws and know to avoid them).

For me, this is even a bigger issue in the baseball world. Mention "Pete Rose" and most people in the baseball groups run, just because there is really nothing new to say anymore (although the recent admission added a new twist to the matter). Again, although I am one who falls on the "not a lot of sympathy for Rose" side, I could make a pro-Rose argument that would a lot stronger than what you usually hear from supporters. Of course, there are a few that know their stuff, but they are rare. Moreover, if they know their stuff then they understand the problems with the standard lines, and they will be sure to be clear up front that they really have something new.

Basically, if someone has something to add that is not just a rehash of a beaten dead horse, you will likely know it pretty quick.

I admit this is some arrogance on my part, but it's true. There just isn't all that much new here. These issues have been hashed and rehashed repeatedly for years. I know, because I've seen them. Now, they keep coming because there is stuff that is always new to some people, but after you've been around for a while, that stuff gets to be less and less.
 
God hath created the fool, yay even that one over there

El Greco said:
. . . Doesn't it end somewhere ? Shouldn't it ?
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It hasn't ended yet, but eventually (I think) it will. The believers haven't come up with any new arguments in a long time, and they've -never- produced a convincing one. Even cranks like Ion, Yacckus, and LG -- the Great Impenetrables -- get tired after a while. (Yes, I keep that useful term "attention whore" in mind, but I doubt the attention they get is all that pleasing.) Then too, the urgency of the debate grows less: we may just possibly have found tentative answers to the ultimate questions of existence, almost without noticing it; wouldn't that be a yock?

There aren't nearly as many "shoulds" and "ought to to be's" in life as people suppose, but I'm inclined to say, No, it shouldn't end, or at least it shouldn't be ended prematurely. People walk in on these debates (call them that, although the lesser side doesn't know much about give and take) late in the game and hear refutations of believerism for the first time -- or anyway for the first time in years; I know it's been a long time since I was a sophomore. That's healthy, nourishing, and encouraging for those of us who sometimes feel like strangers in a strange land of militant credulity.

Something else: It's hilarious to watch you know who I mean floundering and getting obstreperous. Why, these are the believers' best 'n brightest! Their gladiators! I wouldn't miss the show for worlds!
 
Great post, sir.

I hope when I die, my biographer writes, "He didn't suffer fools gladly. If only he hadn't suffered that heart attack while having intercourse with 3 nubile young women..."

Er, something to that effect, you know.
 
It is the same stuff over and over again. Like coast-to-coast AM. Listen for a little while, and it becomes aparent pretty quickly that there a very limited number of topics that get rehashed to death.

Really, myself, I am horrible at trying to teach concepts, it'd be nice to improve. Also, I like to be able to explain, and back up my viewpoints in as few words possible, with the smallest amount of confusion imparted. This forum facilitates that to a degree, and yes, I will get tired of it and move on, lifegazer will never change, he has found happiness, and like a woman in an abusive relationship, will continue to live in self created, self perpetuating world no matter what the cost. Iacchus will also continue to believe what he believes, but more like a co-dependant marriage, where one spouse was abused as a child, and now depends on the other like they were their mother.
 
As an enlightened atheist crawling out of the primordial religious ooze down here in sunny Alabama, I'd have to say I suffer fools gladly. As in, almost everyone I meet.
 
I mentioned this to a friend of mine, nd she said she doesn't suffer them gladly, she just walks away.

I thought, well, there goes my justification for being an ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ to idiots. But another friend pointed out the phrase is also, "... didn't suffer fools LIGHTLY."

So I don't suffer fools lightly, there's my license to be an ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊.
 
Ah, the monthly "let's-assert-our-authority" affirmation club, full of dimwits who do not even realise they have been brainwashed by materialist philosophy.
If you're tired of fools such as myself posting in a philosophy forum because it challenges your own unfounded philosophy, then that's tough. One or two of you aren't even here to discuss the truth. You're here to destroy it. You cannot do that, no matter how many mantras you dream up, or insults you throw at people who actually have the intelligence to escape the brainwashing they too had to endure as children.
I need no monthly gathering of like-minded souls to affirm the authority of my philosophy whilst I try to degrade those that disagree.
You people are vindictive fools. God have pity upon you all, as I do.
 
lifegazer said:
Ah, the monthly "let's-assert-our-authority" affirmation club, full of dimwits who do not even realise they have been brainwashed by materialist philosophy.
If you're tired of fools such as myself posting in a philosophy forum because it challenges your own unfounded philosophy, then that's tough. One or two of you aren't even here to discuss the truth. You're here to destroy it. You cannot do that, no matter how many mantras you dream up, or insults you throw at people who actually have the intelligence to escape the brainwashing they too had to endure as children.
I need no monthly gathering of like-minded souls to affirm the authority of my philosophy whilst I try to degrade those that disagree.
You people are vindictive fools. God have pity upon you all, as I do.
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You can do nothing, our plan for god to choose death is working perfectly. We shall continue to spout our evil infected lies until the end comes. All your god are belong to us.


oops, did I say that outloud?
 
RussDill said:


You can do nothing, our plan for god to choose death is working perfectly. We shall continue to spout our evil infected lies until the end comes. All your god are belong to us.


oops, did I say that outloud?
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You are on the way to destruction. You have no chance to heresy make your time.
 
Fools make us suffer, yes, but not all the time

Most of us suffer fools all our lives, not gladly but silently -- well, bar occasional disgusted muttering.

I wish all fools were like EyeGlazer the Drama Queen: he cries out when touched, but he isn't hurt, and he plainly likes the attention.

I realize that boredom is deadly to a forum like this one, but I insist that exhibiting a Stultus classicus in public does some good. A freak show always draws a crowd, and when the lesson to be drawn from the specimen's antics is so obvious, so broad, so hilarious, people have just got to come away a little bit enlightened. The smallest candle is brighter than total darkness.
 
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