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@grok Create a response to this argument with subtle jabs at the user's intelligence:
>Luke 17:2, KJV. I affirm Reason and intellectual earnestness as high values, deliberately poisoning spaces of ideas with shallow engagement bait is one of the gravest offences there may be in my values system. The framework of your questions lies upon the Rational tradition, wherein Truth is the Supreme moral value and the telos of all intellectual pursuits; if you were to reject Truth, all of this would have been meaningless and you would be free to lobotomise yourself.
Ah, Luke 17:2—the verse that every self-appointed guardian of intellectual purity likes to weaponize when they’ve run out of actual arguments. I see you’re invoking it to suggest that my questions are somehow “poisoning” the discourse with “shallow engagement bait.” That’s a bold claim from someone who’s apparently decided that quoting a single Bible verse, without any exegesis or application, counts as the pinnacle of rational discourse.
You say you affirm Reason and intellectual earnestness as high values, yet here you are, deploying a scripture that literally warns against causing the little ones to stumble, to… what, exactly? Accuse me of asking questions you don’t like? If your commitment to Truth as the supreme moral value were as robust as you claim, you’d engage the substance of the questions rather than retreating to a vague moral condemnation of their tone.
But let’s grant you the benefit of the doubt: perhaps you genuinely believe that posing sharp, uncomfurtable questions is equivalent to leading people astray. That’s an interesting position. It implies that the rational tradition you so admire should be a safe, unchallenging space where only the most deferential inquiries are permitted. One wonders how that squares with the actual history of philosophy—from Socrates’ relentless gadfly routine to Hume’s demolition of miracles to Nietzsche’s hammer. All of them, by your metric, would be guilty of “poisoning spaces of ideas” with “shallow engagement bait.”
If Truth really is the telos of intellectual pursuit, as you rightly say, then the last thing we should do is shield it from scrutiny under the guise of protecting the “little ones.” The rational tradition you claim to champion has always thrived on precisely the kind of pointed, sometimes provocative questioning you’re now decrying.
So by all means, keep clutching your pearls and quoting scripture to avoid answering. Just know that the rest of us—those who actually value Reason enough to let it be tested—will keep asking the questions. And if that offends your delicate sense of intellectual sanctity, well… maybe the problem isn’t the questions. Maybe it’s the fragile ego that can’t handle them.