Stephen Law has done a blog entry about pseudo-profundity, which he apparently intends to include in a future book. He should include another section.

Mock your critics

It's easy, formulaic, and likely to impress your audience. When someone starts critically examining the position you espouse say that he "believes in alien abductions" or "is a flat-earther." The more inflammatory and baseless the claim the better. Your critic is likely to exhibit an emotional reaction to being ridiculed on the basis of a lie. At this point, the audience will see him only as a hothead and will not listen to anything he has to say. Even in the unlikely event that the critic "keeps his cool," the audience may take your charge at face value and still disregard anything your critic says. You will appear to be wise and patient dealing with someone who has nothing of consequence to say.

     That is part of the technique used by the pseudo-profound. Mr. Law would do a disservice not to warn people about it. It's possible he simply overlooked it. So I have taken the liberty of giving him a comment to include it.

Note: Edited for typographical errors.

I found this interesting

     This site, written by a christian, talks about calling people haters as a conversation stopper. Strangely, even though he seems to be describing it as an inappropriate tactic used by atheists, some christians I have encountered appear to have taken it as a recommendation instead.

One point on which Stormbringer was innocent.

     I previously thought that Stormbringer had arranged for the spam comments I was getting, or was writing them himself. I still think that matches his level of integrity. However, I must concede that it was only a coincidence of timing. These same spammers have been attacking various blogs since before Stormbringer came on the scene. And I have run across some of their old comments, still not deleted. He cannot have been involved; and I must concede that I was wrong for thinking he was.

The "good person test"

     I thought I would talk about the sham invented (as far as I know) by Ray Comfort and implemented by his mindless followers known as the "good person test." The con man first asks the victim if he thinks he is (currently) a good person. Of course, everybody thinks himself to be a good person. When the victim says that he does consider himself a good person, the con man asks if he can ask a few questions "to see if that's true." The first of these questions is invariably "have you ever told a lie in your whole life?" The fact is that every has lied at some point. For every person, there was a point when he didn't know any better. For that matter people can, and often do, become better people. But for these con men, it's "tell so much as one lie; never live it down."
     But the low lifes that run this scam are not content with actions that people have actually done. No, they want all their victims to see themselves as "murderers." There's a slight difficulty with this concept. Most people haven't killed anyone. But the wretches will not be deterred. They tell the lie that "anger is murder at heart." In reality, of course, the only thing that is murder at heart is attempting to murder someone. If you think about it, it is not hard to see the whole thing for the scam it is. But the whole exercise to designed to keep the victim from thinking clearly. Ray Comfor calls it "circumnavigating the intellect."

Ignorance of the law

     Some people say that ignorance of the law is not an excuse (legem ignovisse homini non ignoscit.) I say the reverse. It is a rather compelling excuse. Someone who is unfamiliar with a particular law cannot follow it. Furthermore, there are so many laws on the books that it is just not possible to be familiar with all of them. Now let's consider what happens when we try to examine the principle as applied to "god's law." Well, different religions have different claims about what "god's law" is. If this supposed god can't be bothered to show up and clear the confusion, it is impossible to take the notion of "god's law" seriously. Is it possible that there is some powerful being that will actually judge us on the basis of some version of "god's law"? Sure, it's possible. But the way it is actually set up in such a case, the "law" is not designed to be a guide to behavior, but rather as a trap to call people guilty.

Questioning integrity

     "Screaming like scalded cats when I gave them a payback: I faked a couple of 'responses' from the main trolls here in the comment section, left them for a couple of days and took them down."
     "Another time, I was accused of creating someone else, and by the same cafone that did not learn his lesson before. I tried to tell him that this guy even has his own Website. I gave up before I bothered to tell Mr. Cafone that the individual he assumed that I manufactured on the spot had commented on other Weblogs in which both people had participated."
     These two quotes are by the same person. They even appear on the same blog (in main posts, not the comment sections.) As a clarification, he has been accused of writing comments and falsely attributing them to other people. But he has admitted to doing just that. Indeed he only took down the faked responses when the people whose "signatures" he was forging started "screaming like scalded cats." So, sure the people he claims certain comments are from actually exist. They just didn't write the comments he attributes to them. And he's upset that people doubt his integrity?

UPDATE:

     "Here is what was posted, a quote from me, in the proper context. I am putting the parts in red that [he] left off from [his] personal attack on me:"
     Yes, it's so personal that I didn't even identify this individual. There are a few individuals that I find entertaining and will comment on from time to time.
     "Screaming like scalded cats when I gave them a payback: I faked a couple of 'responses' from the main trolls here in the comment section, left them for a couple of days and took them down. Helps prove two of my points: They can't take a joke, and if they had lives that extended beyond trolling, they wouldn't have been pranked. Their double standards are amazing." [Part I quoted initially in bold]
     A quote is out of context when its meaning is changed from the original. I left out his excuses as not particularly relevant. His excuses are also not true. His being an imposter and attempting to put words in someone else's mouth does not prove anything about the other person. Furthermore I don't know of anyone who can take a "joke" like that. Nobody likes having his name used in "support" of a position he opposes. That is no prank. (Note: I do not happen to be one of the people to whom he did this.) The second excuse sounds rather like something a wife-beater says about why he beats his wife. Blaming the victim does not impress anyone.
     "Keep it up, [o wise one,] the crew and I are laughing at you again."
     Somehow I rather doubt that he has a crew. He also seems to forget that he is pretending to ignore me. I have no problem if he ignores me. His inanity is entertaining either way.
     "Even more surprising, this was done to 'prove' that I have made up entire people, numerous comments and, I assume, entire [w]ebsites."
     He is accused only of making up the comments. In his effort to maintain an illusion, he wishes to defend against the nonexistent charge that the people he is attributing his comments to don't exist. The people he faked responses from most certainly exist. They objected to his forgery. No one is claiming that any of these people don't exist. People are saying that these people didn't write what this character says they wrote. That's why the forged comments are "OpenID." He is able to link to anyone's site claiming a comment came from them without their permission.

And the blog belonged to...

     Stormbringer. I heard that he was given the Terry Burton award (in reference to the Terry Burton that often shows up at Ray's blog. I have to say, he is putting a lot of effort towards earning it. Here you will find another post he did. And below I will include my reply that he deleted.

     "Then you engaged in some projection, typical of a sick mind."
     Projection may be typical of a sick mind; but I only reflected yours back at you. If decapitalization is your idea of "venom," then it is safe to say that you have never actually received a hateful comment.
     "You are a hypocrite because you moderate your comments as well, and you have deleted some."
     Where did my comment say anything about moderation and/or deletion? I said that you use the "hateful" label so that you don't have to think about dissent. To counter that, all you would need to do is show some dissenting commentary that you didn't consider "hateful." Ah, but you can't do that, can you?
     "If you had something intelligent to say, or even entertaining, I would let future comments go through. Since you are a pretentious, vicious coward with nothing interesting to say, you are dismissed."
     Others might disagree with your definitions of "intelligent," "pretentious," and "vicious."
     "I know you're obsessed with me..."
     Oh, your just a perfect example of someone who fears critical thought. Daniel's incoherence was more entertaining until his "prophecy" about the destruction of San Francisco failed and he pulled down his blog and went into hiding. No, your not the first person I've written about because he looks like an unbelievable charicature.
     "...[Y]ou have four readers who actually like your mindless nonsense."
     Aw, is that supposed to be a blow to my ego? I'm not the one who claims there are hoards of people hanging on my every word.

     By the way, for your edification, there was more than one person with the name "PVBLIVS" -- just like there was more than one person with the name "Theodore."

     Now, not only did he delete the comment, but he created a fake comment (with OpenID he can pretend to be anybody) to claim that Stormbringer "debates" but that I was just "crying." Funny, this supposed other person talks just like Stormbringer, right down to his chosen diminutive in place of my name. Now, I realize that anyone who is convinced ahead of time that I am "crying" will interpret anything I say in that light. But I defy anyone to give an example of Stormbringer actually debating instead of pulling out thought-stoppers. For that matter, I don't think any of Stormbringer's supporters (does he have any other than himself?) can provide an example of dissent that Stormbringer didn't label "hateful."
     Oh, yes, nobody won the ten points. I would have provided more time; but there was just too much entertainment value to Stormbringer's next post -- the comment on which I issued the points challenge belonging to the post just prior to the one to which today's comment belongs.