Fundamental dishonesty. They both indulge in shameless quote-mining.
Also, I think the phrase “pulling an Ecklund” is going to be really useful. Use it whenever you see someone trying to rope an authority into the pro-religion, god-praising happy-clapping theist camp by pretending that awe and secular ‘spirituality’ are the same thing as going to church and loving Jesus or any other anthropomorphic deity.
Another acceptable answers are:
THEY LIKE TO USE THE CAPLOCKS.
They like their ran-dom dashes and rem_val of vowels.
They both agree that if a person doesn’t agree with them, that person is trampling on their rights.
They both agree that if you repeat something enough, it becomes true.
They both agree that if you repeat something enough, it becomes true.
They both agree that if you repeat something enough, it becomes true.
And they both agree that citations are the work of the devil.
They both agree that, you — whoever it is reading this comment, is going to hell.
FSM’s mid-life crisis.
Ooooh — I’m spiritual. I used to buy into that. I am more linguistically precise now. If you go to the book store, the “Spiritual” section does not have the books on Einstein, Mozart, or Shakespeare. We know what it really means. They’re kidding no one but themselves.
As you say, it’s a ploy to try to make their beliefs sound reasonable any way they can. It’s like when people try to include scientifically supported diet, exercise, herbs and other non-controversial aspects of health into the category of “alternative medicine.” Watch out for the bait ‘n switch.
I once told a politically liberal New Age friend of mine that calling me “spiritual” because I loved art and nature would be like someone in the Tea Party telling her she was a “Republican” because the United States is a democratic republic. Now wouldn’t that just sound a tad suspicious to her? Sooner or later, someone is going to be up to something.
Look! Right There! The Great athiest PZ Meyer’s has, on is blog, claimed that Jesus and Jerry Falwell are One and the Same!1!! Its write There in the second Paragraph! Blasfemur!
What do creationists and other apologists for gods have in common?
A lot more than the apologists are willing to admit, especially now that creationism has been so thoroughly discredited; starting with the exact same anti-rationalist blither-points, many of which I’ve been hearing since 1978.
PS: Someone needs to tell the folks writing the ad copy for the Celebration of Reason/Global Atheist Convention that they need to remove Christopher Hitchens from what appears to be a list of featured speakers, for a rather obvious reason.
Oooh, that’s so cute, misquoting Darwin for your own agenda.
Hey Ecklund, did you hear the one about the eye? It’s practically the same type of quote-mine that you did, quote Darwin’s statement of the difficulty, then ignore his devastation of the “argument” from incredulity that you quote-mined.
Glen Davidson
See, it’s right there in black and white. Darwin says, specifically, “I am… sure… of… the existence of God.”
Time to pack it up and go home, athiests.
Hah, those clowns left out PAM Dirac – whose argument is really the best:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Dirac#Religious_views
“I cannot understand why we idle discussing religion. If we are honest—and scientists have to be—we must admit that religion is a jumble of false assertions, with no basis in reality. The very idea of God is a product of the human imagination. It is quite understandable why primitive people, who were so much more exposed to the overpowering forces of nature than we are today, should have personified these forces in fear and trembling. But nowadays, when we understand so many natural processes, we have no need for such solutions. I can’t for the life of me see how the postulate of an Almighty God helps us in any way.”
It’s a devastating critique, with no qualifications added – so it must be ignored? And yes, Dirac certainly qualifies as one of the greatest scientists of the 20th century.
There are definitions of “spirituality” (eg. Sagan’s) that are compatible with atheism without doing violence to (some) historical usage of the term, ie. they are in principle reasonable uses of the word to capture an aspect of human experience common to both (some) religious and non-religious people. But in practice, it almost always seems to be used to smear it all together, so we should all hold hands, sing kum-ba-ya, concentrate on being “spiritual”, and never, ever raise any unpleasantness about whether any of this is actually, you know, *true*.
(Not that we shouldn’t find ways of living together — and even joining on common goals — but we’re still *not* *the* *same* as the religious liberals who love them some “spirituality”).
THE 9th COMMANDMENT
Exodus 20:16 “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.”
Taking a quote out of context and pretending it supports your argument, when this was not the intent, is indeed bearing false witness.
yeah, but the 9th is, like almost the 10th, which is one less than 11, which doesn’t exist.
Or, as the 9th fucking commandment in the fucking bible clearly states:
Thou shalt not fucking bear false witness against thy fucking neighbour.
@12: I can’t help thinking you’ve got that mixed up with the 7th Commandment. I’m just sayin’….
English is a wonderful language and I predict “pulling an Eklund” will evolve into just “an Eklund,” then we will convert it to a verb: to eklund.
As to Christians quote mining: It’s a well practiced art. They’ve been doing it to the Bible in excruciating detail for millennia. That’s one reason there’s a bazillion versions of Christianity.
andyo, I believe the 11th commandment is: “Don’t get caught.”
Prerequisite for observance of the 11th commandment:
Do not attract unnecessary attention.
I’ve observed that those least skilled in the finer points of camouflage seem to often be those who can least afford closer inspection.
Just shows to go ya . . . (sigh) the congregation fails to connect the dots again. They also fail to run a parallel model of reality in their minds alongside the god-soaked one. Now, there’s an angle; knowing how easily the congregation can hold mutually exclusive ideas simultaneously, might there not be a way to convince them employ a two-possible-worlds hypothesis mental model as a broader foundation for informing their judgments?
If they could be convinced (or given a powerful witness:) to hold both the notion that Invisible Supernatural Spooks exist and thus this that and the other thing and that there are no ISS, maybe they could finally see that there really isn’t enough evidence in the real world to distinguish between the two —
Nahh. You’re right. Forget it.
Religion is linear and relentlessly rigid. Poor wretches.
mmm.. squishy overpicked cherries.
Why are we surprised? They even quote mine their own Bible. Look up the alleged “prophesies” for Jesus and they are almost entirely out of context quote mines that aren’t reinterpreted Nostradamus type vague prophesies but are unrelated textual correlations not unlike listening to Pink Floyd while watching Wizard of Oz.