Hi NoNukes,
I disagree that the thread is a waste of time. We are learning quite a bit about how marc9000 views things and I find his view point quite interesting.
In a clinical sense perhaps.
I think that marc9000 has already made his opinions clear; anyone who disagrees with him about science, politics or religion is an atheist and therefore wicked. This makes me an atheist, but it also makes Percy an atheist, it makes the Pope an atheist... Basically, it's just a palce-holder insult for anyone marc9000 disapproves of. He uses the term "liberal" in much the same way.
In the long run perhaps threads like this save time.
I doubt it. Tangle was the first to point it out; marc9000's title contains three words and he has chosen idiosyncratic definitions for all of them. That is not an approach that's likely to help clarify anything. It may appeal to marc9000 as a way to rationalise the cognitive dissonance arising from his rich fantasy life, but as actual communication, it's valueless.
I don't think creationists are actually lying when they quote mine. Marc9000 believes he has caught the author in an admissions of his true feelings.
Like I say, perhaps he's not deliberately lying, but certainly he is guilty of intellectual dishonesty. I mean, look at this, from the very page that marc9000 linked to;
quote:
My dictionary defines [militant] as "aggressive or vigorous, especially in support of a cause." But the word is used all too freely in the feebler sense of "holding or expressing views which are unpopular or which I don't like." Fore example, when Richard Dawkins is asked about this religious beliefs and replies "I'm an atheist, and i have no time for religion," he is at once accused by tabloid newspapers and other commentators of being a "militant atheist." So, if you find yourself writing this word, stop and think whether it has any clear meaning, or whether you are just using it as a swearword."
- R.L. Trask, Mind the gaffe: the Penguin guide to common errors in English
That was right there on the page he quoted from and yet he is doing precisely what this quote warns against. Whether he is lying or merely deluding himself, something is going wrong here.
And as for his absurd claim that by "atheist" he means "wicked person", I'm flat out calling that a lie. I think that marc9000 knows full well that he's equivocating there and he's doing it deliberately.
Mutate and Survive