is able to demand respect in discussions which it doesn't deserve.
Its success in obtaining undeserved respect distorts the conclusion
of discussions, usually in the direction of "maybe God exists, who
indeed can say, ahhhh."

Meta-comment about arguments being ludicrous - that is, founded in
a collection of other ideas commonly agreed to be false, or self
contradictory in trivially obvious ways, or otherwise weak - can be 
part of truth-seeking, and not an attempt to shut down discussion,
but rather an attempt to avoid being tricked into an inconclusive
admission that anything is possible, which implies the ideas are
sort-of-true even though there's no reason at all to think that.