Dr Adequate writes:
Since you're so sensitive about misrepresentation, can I ask where AZPaul ever said that you ever said the human is "supreme in the universe"? Or is misrepresentation okay when you do it?
I saw what you did there! Well, in Message 80 of this thread, our buddy AZPaul3 was responding to a post in which I said I objected not to scientific fact, but to dehumanizing rhetoric like being called a "machine." He used the very words I quoted when he was delivering another clip of his let's-call-them-rhetorical questions in my direction:
AZPaul3 writes:
Takes you out of that special place you seem to need? Makes you less than supreme in the universe? Puts you right down there on the same level as all other life on this planet? Doesn't grant your chemical-filled apebag enough special superior status? Makes you feel sad?
Now I assume we could look at these questions in a few different ways. At face value it appears that he's ascribing these opinions to me (he even mentions a "special place" that I "seem to need"), even though I never claimed that I (or humanity, or whoever he means I might mean) was "supreme in the universe" or denied that humans share ancestry with all other life on Earth.
It could be that he's parodying those opinions and wondering how anyone could seriously hold such silly beliefs. But in that case, why direct them at me, who never claimed that it was reasonable to hold such beliefs in the first place?
Or it could be that he's just partaking in some of that harmless, oh-so-amusing cyber-bullying where someone lashes out at a perceived enemy with incoherent blather that's meant to insult and intimidate rather than foster discussion, and which he could disingenuously deny if called out on it.
Hmm. This is a tough one.