The sight of the bare katana inspires everyone to a practically Nipponese level of politeness - Neal Stephenson

It appeared that way, Lawrence, but this raised the question of was mathematics really true or was it just a game played with symbols? In other words — are we discovering Truth, or just wanking?

All of the people in the conspiracy/troll ecosystem had been sucked into the vortex of Moab and begun to devote excruciating levels of attention to the entire cast of characters...performers in all of the fake videos and Corvallis Kawasaki. For he had been identified by name, on national television, by the president of the United States.... So within 24 hours, the citizens of Crazytown had compiled a huge dossier of mostly wrong material on him....
Crazytown was repelled by facts and knowledge, as oil fled from water, but was fascinated by the absence of hard facts, since it provided vacant space in which to construct elaborate edifices of speculation.

If you sincerely believed in God, how could you form one thought, speak one sentence, without mentioning Him?