"Catchy" and "True" Are Two Different Things

"Those Who Stand For Nothing Fall For Anything"


I saw that phrase written on a sign outside of a church in Newtown today.  Sounds kind of catchy - I'm sure plenty of people read it and went "wow, yeah, that's smart."  While I was driving, I analyzed this saying.


Presumably, when a church mentions "those who stand for nothing," they are referring to atheists and/or agnostics.  Saying that they "fall for anything" infers that such people are gullible, easily influenced, easily persuaded, etc.  


So, in other words, the phrase means "Atheists and agnostics are easily persuaded."


The reason people such as myself fall under the category "agnostic" is because we aren't easily persuaded.  If we were easily persuaded, we might believe in strange magical stories.  I once heard a story that asserts that humans are evil because a woman cloned from a human bone ate an apple (a snake told her to), and the only way mankind can be saved from being eternally pitchforked by a goatman (he was also the snake) is to pray to a zombie.  I wasn't persuaded.