24th April 2007, 11:50 PM
Be honest about your opinion on it when pressed. They may be offended, but they are the ones that brought it up and argued their side so vehemently.
I'm basically saying it's time to stop considering disagreement with superstition as "rudeness". Now don't get me wrong, you can still do it politely, but I've about had it with saying "that's nice" and then going back to what I was doing (especially since it seems more and more won't accept even a passive noncommital statement any more).
Beyond that, nothing really. Even pointing out that people who have died in the past generally never actually wanted to die and there have been plenty of deluded souls who literally thought they would live forever that are now dead, and the thought experiment of, well, throwing yourself in front of a train and convincing yourself nothing's going to happen. Heck, what about anyone that's ever died in their sleep? They are ASLEEP, no conciousness there at the time to think they are going to die.
Anyway, may they encounter these highway systems. I'm sure they could get out of them okay :D.
<img src="http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/highway_engineer_pranks.png">
I'm basically saying it's time to stop considering disagreement with superstition as "rudeness". Now don't get me wrong, you can still do it politely, but I've about had it with saying "that's nice" and then going back to what I was doing (especially since it seems more and more won't accept even a passive noncommital statement any more).
Beyond that, nothing really. Even pointing out that people who have died in the past generally never actually wanted to die and there have been plenty of deluded souls who literally thought they would live forever that are now dead, and the thought experiment of, well, throwing yourself in front of a train and convincing yourself nothing's going to happen. Heck, what about anyone that's ever died in their sleep? They are ASLEEP, no conciousness there at the time to think they are going to die.
Anyway, may they encounter these highway systems. I'm sure they could get out of them okay :D.
<img src="http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/highway_engineer_pranks.png">
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)