I Need a Name for This
Offline This has happened to me a couple of times, and I think the regular English word is "stupefaction", but it might be more complicated than that.
You know the arguments you have with theists, and they're being head-spinningly crazy about something, like, say, "The big bang theory posits that cheese is always green -- and we know that's false!"
It's that feeling. The one where you're trying to imagine how someone could actually believe the shit they're saying, so all your thought process is eaten up by that question, and you can't form a reasonable response because you're so incredibly thrown off. So perturbed are your thoughts, in fact, that they believe you are "stumped".
Well yes, I've been stumped. I still can't believe the shit some people say. Especially when it has absolutely no basis in fact, reality, logic (even shitty logic), or anything demonstrated at all.
There has to be a word for that.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
- Login to post comments
Stupefy / stupefied; stun with astonishment. , Dumbfound; astonish. Strike dumb/ speechless. Confound; Throw into perplexity or confusion. Bizzare; Strange, eccentric, grotesque. Or just remind them that psychiatric help is available from professionals.
"Very funny Scotty; now beam down our clothes."
VEGETARIAN: Ancient Hindu word for "lousy hunter"
If man was formed from dirt, why is there still dirt?
'Gobsmacked' always worked for me.
How about "befuckled"?
I know this feeling. What you've heard is so stupid you don't even know where to begin and lose all hope for humanity....good times.
"Faith, Faith is an island in the setting sun,
but proof, proof is the bottom line for everyone."
Proof, Paul Simon
Nothing this hard should taste so beefy.
I've been having that feeling more and more the last couple of years. The first time I had it online, I remember saying something like this: "I don't know how to respond to this argument anymore than I could respond to someone who was certain all the streetlights in Manhattan are made of cream cheese." There's a point at which any argument you could make would assume a reasonably sane interlocutor. When your interlocutor has not demonstrated such a quality, the only appropriate reaction is stunned silence.
As for words, what about nonplussed? Better yet, what about stupefyingly nonplussed?
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
Sometimes pictures can say things better
Gotta say, I'm leaning towards "befuckled".
Considering Hamby and I both used cheese examples, maybe there should be a word with cheese in it. Like "consternatingly cheese-doodled".
Um. No, that's dumb. But "Holy cream-cheese streetlights in Manhattan, Batman!" could work, too.
I think "befuckled" might cover it. Because there's that moment of "... fuck ..." when you realize that this person is actually saying this shit because they believe it. Just being befuddled doesn't cover it. Even bamboozled sounds more like a simple expression of surprise.
"Are they just fucking with me? Who would believe in an invisible, anthropomorphic, filicidal fascist who loves them? That's insane."
Later, still reeling from the notion that a person would seriously consider the existence of such an improbable being a Good Thing, one is asked questions about philosophy not considered since first year. The mind is befuckled.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
I'll try out "befuckled" in bar conversation. That'll be the real litmus test.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
Call it Sally.
But I already call you Sally.
Rly? Wanna cuddle?
Logic is a systematic method of coming to the wrong conclusion with confidence.
I like the sound of befuckled but stupified has its own theme song.
A drinking buddy of mine coined the term "religiostupidification." Maybe this is "religiostupefaction."
Oooooh... I like that
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
lol good word, but I've experienced this phenomenon listening to nonreligious people also
How about sphincter paralyzing? (Just to be funny)
People who think there is something they refer to as god don't ask enough questions.