HYPERBOLE – exaggeration, overstatement, catastrophising
Catastrophising is more than just exaggeration – it's predicting apocalyptic consequences (especially without showing the steps from A to B). It often involves undefined terms. Relaxed divorce laws haven't led to the disappearance of any form of government, and young people are not roaming naked in packs living off raw squirrels. Or, if something disturbs you, you can always attack what it symbolises, rather than think up rational reasons for disliking the phenomenon itself.
The Muslim community centre near Ground Zero is a “stab in the heart” of Americans. (Sarah Palin)
An Iranian newspaper denounced Carla Bruni as a prostitute for petitioning for Ashtiani to be reprieved.
On his website John J. May, author of The Origin of Specious Nonsense, says evolution “cripples sanity, promotes myths and obscures reality”. Sept 13 10 Irish Times "It [evolution] is a toxic poisonous mind virus which destroys the hearts immune system against hope and common sense,” he added.
Religion is an insult to human dignity. Richard Dawkins
If we relax the divorce laws it will lead to anarchy!
Political correctness has destroyed society!
Young people have become feral!
This 13-year-old father shows that we have lost all sense of right and wrong!
"This is Stalinism, practically!" David Hockney on the smoking ban (Times May 9 2009)
When the head of a theological college removed one prayer from a rite, protesters asked: “Why do you want to destroy the prayerbook?”
“Full normalization of homosexuality would eventually mean the end to all morals legislation of any kind." Albert Mohler, quoted in Time Nov 08
"The
progressive intelligentsia ... have simply written orderly, married,
normative family life out of the script, enforced the doctrines of
multiculturalism and nonjudgmentalism with the zealotry of the fanatic,
and caused Britain to descend into an age of barbarism." Melanie Phillips in the Daily Mail (I'm still waiting, Melanie.)
A more imaginative argument is that covering the face is
an attack on civilized norms. "The niqab and the burqa represent a refusal
to exist as a person in the eyes of others," says French parliamentary
leader Jean-Francois Cope. Journalist Christopher Hitchens calls them "the
most aggressive sign of a refusal to integrate or accommodate." Chicago Tribune 2010
The idea of damaging books is morally repulsive!
When we lose sight of the spiritual aspect of married life, or holy matrimony as it once was called, we are diminished as human beings. Guardian comment November 9, 2010
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