The idea that a contradiction is bad because absolutely anything follows from it might seem strange to a non-logician. Bertrand Russell was once trying to get this very point across at a public lecture when a heckler interrupted him. “So prove to me that if two plus two is five, I’m the Pope,” the heckler said. “Very well,” Russell replied. “From ‘two plus two equals five’ it follows, subtracting three from each side, that two equals one. You and the Pope are two, therefore you are one.”
