From the Wikipedia:.
"Quote mining is the practice of compiling quotes from large volumes of literature or spoken word. The term is used pejoratively to accuse the "quote miner" of contextomy and misquotation, where favorable positions are amplified or falsely suggested, and unfavorable positions in the same text are excluded or otherwise obscured."
"Contextomy?" that's a word?
After all the rhetoric from Bush and the so-called Christian Coalition, now Nancy Pelosi is wading in.
I Saw Nancy Pelosi on CSPANTV quoting the bible to say that we should be concerned for the environment. No argument there, but the same bible is what the president and corporations quote when they want to justify destroying the environment. And these are always (or almost always) Old Testament verses, even when the "Christian Coalition" spins politics they most often quote the OT. Why do you suppose that is? Could it be that the OT is so contradictory that it lends itself to spinning?
She's been under my radar screen, so I had to do some digging to see what other pearls she is casting. Nancy Pelosi is also working the bible for, civil rights/discrimination quotes, ethics reform, and a host of other applications Perhaps she's just fighting fire with fire? Work the bible into your act and people stop arguing?
This is troubling - we should be doing what is right, because it is the right thing to do, not what can be found in the bible or other religious source. I don't object to Pelosi or her policy, but when she uses the bible in a way to say "here it is in the BOOK, that ends the discussion" It is bad. Particularly when the same book can support opposing views if you cherry-pick the quotes. Koran seems to be working the same way.
Goes a long way to explaining how the world got so screwed up - people with an agenda using religion and unable to distinguish the two.
To quote Howard Armstrong " IT isn't what we don't know that causes all the problems in this world; It is what we do know that simply isn't so." Or something to that effect . . .