It's inevitable that as Skeptophilia has grown in popularity, it's also attracted some attention of the less-positive sort.
Let me say up front that I appreciate most of the comments I get, even the ones that disagree with me. As I pointed out to one person who took exception to something I posted -- and then apologized for appearing negative -- I wouldn't be much of a skeptic if I didn't admit it when I was wrong, had incomplete information, or was simply ignorant about a topic, so there was no need to apologize for taking me to task for it. (And in point of fact, after my discussion with the person in question, I decided I was far enough off base that I went back and deleted the post.)
But all you have to do is look at the comments section of pretty much any example of online media to find out that there's a whole other side of this phenomenon.
So for your entertainment, today I'd like to present to you a sampling of some recent-ish comments I've gotten on posts, and a short response to each from me.
1. After a post in which I scoffed at the idea that some lady in Romania had somehow taken a photograph of her dead grandma in hell:
You're laughing now, but you won't be once you're dead yourself and join the damned in hell.
Well, you're right insofar as I won't be laughing after I'm dead. If dead people laughed, it would give a whole different vibe to your typical funeral. (On the other hand, it'd still be better than what happened at Mr. Redpath's poor Grandmama's funeral in the Doctor Who episode "The Unquiet Dead.") As far as where my eternal soul -- presuming I actually have one -- will end up once I've shuffled off this mortal coil, there are a lot of other options various religions have dreamed up besides the Christian heaven and hell, so maybe there'll be choices. As I've mentioned before, my personal favorite is Valhalla. This might necessitate my having a Viking funeral, which I think would be kind of cool, but I'm not sure my wife will go for it.
2. After a post on alternative medicine:
I hate closed-minded idiots like you. I hope Big Pharma is paying you well.
I wish Big Pharma was paying me at all. They're way behind on sending out their Shill Checks, and I'm hoping they get their asses in gear soon because at the moment I'm making one-eighth of bugger-all as a novelist.
3. A response to a post, I've forgotten which, because it could be pretty much any of them:
You sure do swear a lot.
Fuckin' right I do. My mom, who was a complete prude, tried her best to cure me of it, saying stuff like "People use bad words only if their vocabulary is so poor they don't know any appropriate ones." With the wisdom of age, I've come to the conclusion that there's nothing whatsoever wrong with my vocabulary, and if an off-color word is the right one for the occasion, I'm damn well going to use it. In any case, if the occasional swear word makes your eyes cross, you're not going to have much fun here at Skeptophilia.
4. In response to a post I did about musical taste:
The fact that you sing the praises of Ralph Vaughan Williams tells me everything I need to know about the depth of your knowledge of classical music. He's the favorite composer of shallow pseudo-intellectuals.
Opinion (n.) /əˈpɪn·yən/ -- a judgment about something or someone based upon personal experience and belief rather than universal or provable facts.
5. After one of my recent posts criticizing Donald Trump -- I forget which, because once again, there are a bunch to choose from:
Trump is the president. He won, and you libtards better get used to it.
I know he won, because it's why I had to renew my Xanax prescription last week. As far as getting used to it -- I think everyone in this country is going to have to get used to a lot of things, including higher food prices, internment camps and deportations, cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, elimination of VA health care benefits, loss of access to vaccines, and amoral plutocrats in charge of everything. To name a few.
But by all means, don't let me stop you from celebrating while you've still got reason to.
6. After a post about an ultra-Christian preacher who thinks that masturbation summons "sex demons:"
I don't get on social media to read filth like this.
Then... um... don't read it? No one's forcing you to read anything. This reminds me of the old story about the woman who called the police because she could see out of her back window that some teenage boys were skinnydipping in the nearby river. So the police came, and (showing admirable restraint) told the boys to go swim somewhere else. Well, an hour later, the police got a second call from her with the same complaint.
The police said, "So, you can still see the boys through your window?"
And the woman said, "No, but I can if I climb up on my roof and look through my binoculars."
7. After a post about hoaxes and conspiracies in which I mentioned that my all-time favorite book was Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum:
Ooh, well, aren't you just the most sophisticated scholar in the room. Reading Eco is the modern equivalent of pretending you actually enjoy James Joyce.
Well, given that I'm the only person in the room at the moment, I'm the most sophisticated scholar here kind of by default. The only other vaguely sentient being in my office is my puppy Jethro, who is a lovely little dog but (and I mean this in the kindest possible way) has the IQ of a peach pit. But leaving that aside, allow me to correct an apparent misapprehension on your part. I hate posturing and conceit as much as you seem to, and if I didn't like Foucault's Pendulum I certainly wouldn't have felt inclined to say I did out of some misguided sense that it would impress people. And as far as your not liking Eco, I'll simply refer you to the definition of "opinion" I posted earlier.
Anyhow, those are a few selections from the mailbag. Following Irish writer Brendan Behan's observation that "there's no such thing as bad publicity," I'd say, keep those cards and letters comin'. I certainly can't stop people from responding negatively to what I post, and then indignantly informing me of the fact, but I can then save up their responses for a subsequent post.
Consider yourself forewarned.
No comments:
Post a Comment