To Dispute or Not to Dispute?
Here is a letter I sent to
Lord Omar
in order to dispute a theory of his that I couldn't help believing. Needless
to say, it gets rather twisted.
Lord Omar,
...unimportant stuff omitted...
Now, about your Doktorin on OIO's and the Domino's Evil Delivery Man
(``Damnation delivered in 30 minutes or it's (and you're) free''): Bravo.
It'll be in 5NP II and HyperDiscordia pre-haste (even sooner
than post-haste). Consider the NJ Front of the War on OIO's to be truly joined.
Unfortunately, you threw in that incentive of Eternal Damnation if I dispute
you...
I am loathe to
pick
up yon hurled gauntlet, but I fear that I must. You see, I've been Eternally
Damned, officially or unofficially, by almost every major religion on the
planet (in fact, I spent most of my first couple of years in college making
sure that every Christian on campus knew that I was a slathering Satanist and
was going to Hell.
Pope Icky Fundament, PZK
and I referred to my activities as ``Hell ROTC.'' We figured that if, in
addition to damning myself, I managed to help a few more people along their
path to the Ninth Circle, that would make me officer material when Armageddon
hit.). I would be remiss in my duties if I didn't at least try to make it a
clean sweep. The problem, of course, is that I believe you wholeheartedly in
all things and consider your every spoken word to be as from the
Goddess
Herself. This, of course, is the
perfect way to disagree with you.
In the grand tradition of such assholish statements as ``Well, that's the
exception that proves the rule,'' I shall refute you thusly:
Your Doktorin on Evil is the absolute truth.
Now, everyone knows that there is no such thing as the ``absolute truth.''
Therefore, the above statement equates your Doktorin, which plainly exists,
with something that does not exist. Hence, the above statement cannot be true.
By the Law of the Excluded Middle (which was all the rage during the time of
Aristotle and still enjoys Obvious Truth status among the Objectivists [and
which should not be confused with the
Law of the Extruded Muddle,
which is different]), a statement must be true, or if not true, then false.
That, as
Tweedledee
would say, is
logic.
By this rule, the above agreement must be false and, as an extra added oddity,
it is false only because I believe you so fervently. If I didn't
believe in an absolute truth, then my statement would be meaningless (as if I
said that your Doktorin was a flibberty jibbet, for example) instead of being
false. If the statement in which I agree with you is false then I, by rather
obvious logic, do not and, indeed, cannot agree with you. If it is
logically impossible to agree with you, then your argument cannot be true.
QED.
(To quote my betrothed, Elizabeth, ``That must be good
Discordianism.
It makes my head hurt.'')
I hereby declare checkmate, match and set and take for myself the title
Chaosopher,
Fifth Class. As always, Goddess prevails.
May the Madness always find you,
Al
Lord Omar responded like
so.