Can a person be offended by both of the following?

[Boojatta]

1. You doubt that a particular claim made by that person is actually true.

2. You try to conceal your doubt because you suspect that the person would be offended by your doubt.

[TWiley]

1. No ......

You reference the offence as registered by two separate individuals. There is a negative correlation in this case

[Boojatta]

3. Can armchair theorizing settle this question or is observational study required?

[TWiley]

6. There are rules you know ..... Test vs Observation

The rules for testing are much different from the rules which govern observation. Butt hell yes, some observational study IS required.

[patrice]

2. Might they be offended by the doubt in both cases?

Their offense at 1. is obvious.

Re 2., Trying to conceal your doubt means that you doubt, which is what they are offended by in the first place, not the fact that your trying to conceal it.

[Boojatta]

5. It's possible that the effort at concealment simply reveals the doubt...

and that only the doubt itself provokes offense. However, isn't it also possible that the effort at concealment itself provokes offense?

I suppose that a related question is: can a person be genuinely offended by something that would be a slanderous accusation if it were false, but that is actually not slanderous because it is true?

[TWiley]

7. the slanderer is pleased to make the comment .... the victim is not

Butt, isn't that the purpose of misery ..... the unvarnished joy it brings to other people?

[Boojatta]

11. Who is "the slanderer"?

The question refers to something "that would be a slanderous accusation if it were false, but that is actually not slanderous."

[patrice]

12. Concealment would be an offense if a lie were preferred.

Truth, whether disagreeable or not, is generally regarded as a strength, unless it is an un-founded truth, in which case it's little more than an echo and, thus, a weakness which needs disguising, so a lie IS preferrable.

[Boojatta]

14. What do you mean by the phrase "un-founded truth"?

An example might be helpful.

[The Straight Story]

4. I am offended by both your questions

so yes :)

[geckosfeet]

8. I doubt it. But, please don't be offended.

[lumberjack_jeff]

9. Is that true?

I mean, could you... you know... pretty please provide a link? (if it wouldn't be too much trouble?)

Nah. If I think you're full of shit enough to merit a reply, I'll say so.

[MineralMan]

10. Chomsky is not a physicist....so I doubt your quotation.

Please don't be offended.

[Boojatta]

13. After I change my signature, I don't want that to become an obscure reference.

So here is a copy of my signature:

People don’t scoff at theories of physics that refer to entities and principles that seem weird and counter-intuitive. However, somewhere beyond physics there is a boundary and everything changes. This is worse than Cartesian dualism, which was a scientific hypothesis, naturalistic in spirit. Abandoning this dualist stance, we shall pursue inquiry where it leads. – Chomsky (inexact quote)

[AlCzervik]

15. like another patented Bouncy story?

i find many of them funny because thery're so absurd.

[BuyingThyme]

16. Only a dishonest person would not be offended.

[Canuckistanian]

17. Is the person offended more by the doubting or the concealment?

That would tell a lot about the person. And even more about the person's true veracity.

[Boojatta]

18. Kick to encourage more comments

[saltpoint]

19. I suppose they could take offense, although whether the degree of offense

justifies our paying attention to it is another question entirely.

Until at least the mid-80s it was illegal in some Oklahoma towns to drink beer in your underwear. Drinking beer in one's undies does't strike me as an unpardonable offense. Perhaps I hold a minority view on this urgent issue.

The law was so poorly written as to suggest that one would use one's underwear and not a can, bottle, or glass, or other container, to drink beer.

I'm not the final authority on beer drinking in the known universe, but from a lay perspective, I feel that a can, bottle, or glass would be a preferable delivery system for beer as opposed to underwear.

Again, I'm just speaking for myself.

I'm more offended by the idiocy of the Oklahoma law than by the notion that someone, somewhere, is drinking beer in their underwear, presumably in warm enough weather so that other articles of clothing are not needed. Jimmy Buffett lives in Florida, so it might make more sense for him to sit on the back porch in hs underwear and drink beer than it would for someone who lives in say, Minot, North Dakota, in the dead of winter.

If I lived in Minot, North Dakota, and if it was the dead of winter, I would not need an official on-the-books prohibition to not drink beer in my underwear. I would not drink beer in my underwear voluntarily.

Thank you, and God Bless America.