Alt.atheism Guide to Current Kooks

Welcome! This is an unofficial list and description of some of the religious kooks that hang around alt.atheism a lot. The requirements for inclusion in this guide are as follows:

• Must be consistently irrational
• Must be obnoxious and/or annoying to alt.atheism regulars
• Must post regularly and in reasonably large volume
• Must have some sort of distinguishing style or crusade

NOTE: Theists who are simply annoying are not eligible for inclusion! They must be unusually god-soaked.

There is a much larger which is a constantly updated list of twits who hang out on alt.atheism maintained by Therion Ware. It includes those who are just plain twits, without necessarily having achieved kook-hood. They are mostly just stupid and ignorant, without being particularly spectacular about it. For those wishing to avoid the most annoying theist posts, this makes a good starting killfile.

Send comments, additions, corrections, submissions, thoughts, kudos, vitriol and/or marriage proposals to randallg@telemark.net

Contributors: randall g, Susan Mitchell, Stix, Daneel, Liz

Quick Contents:
Lim CK
Oldguyteck
Rec.org.mensa
Sam Lopez
John P. Boatwright
J<censored>
Riley Sinder
Diana Newman
Gladys
The Sage
Jim Nichols
Zoner
Jill E. Deel
Richard Micheal Schiller
Berry

Lim CK

Aliases: Various

Religion: Muslim

Favorite fallacies: Argument from personal incredulity, ad hominem, Pascal's Wager, wishful thinking, argument from authority, belief that length lends credibility

Quirks: Considers his personal fear of death and desire for vengeance as reason to believe in God.

Annoying habits: Changes alias constantly to avoid killfiles. Reposts same message multiple times under several titles.

Possibility of rationality: epsilon at best.

Description: LimCK is a Malaysian Muslim, who seems to consider that atheists are responsible for all the evils on the earth; in 1999 he has in particular blamed the (largely Christian-committed) Kosovo atrocities on atheism. Has a nearly pathological fear of death. Construes objections to his breaches of netiquette as vindication of his view of atheists as evil. His argument for the existence of God basically boils down to "Mohammed was an ignorant goat-herd and couldn't have achieved what he did without direct divine intervention; therefore, the Qur'an is the word of God". Likes to quote Western 'authorities' (from early 19th century historians to George Bernard Shaw) in support of Mohammed's status as a 'great man'; seems to think that such status somehow automatically proves God's existence as well. Has occasionally engaged in conversation (apart from hit-and-run trolls); in them his tactic is to flood his opponent out.

OldguyTech

Religion: Roman Catholic

AKA: Ed Croteau, Oldfart

Synopsis: There is some speculation that Ed is an elaborate troll, but he claims to be 80+ years old with 19 children. He has made it his personal mission in life to rid the Internet of sex and profanity, beginning (and probably never ending) with alt.atheism. Generally he responds only to "cuss words" with barely comprehensible, meandering prose. His spelling and grammar are atrocious and it is often hard to decipher any meaning from his posts.

Theologically uninteresting, Ed simply accepts standard Catholicism without question or even much knowledge, and rarely bothers to discuss anything related to atheism or theism, apart from being titillated pink at how sexually immoral atheists are. While he never says anything spectacular, and his posts are almost entirely devoid of interest (humourous or otherwise), Ed's sheer bloodymindedness is now sufficient to elevate him to kookhood.

Funny Moments: In all seriousness he has attempted the following online exorcism:

>Be gone Satan from this helper of yours.
>
>You have him twisted to your will , you have suceeded in foiling this
>poor soul, again in Jesus name I say begone.
>
>Set this soul free, and the souls of all the misguided one in here.
>
>We cast out that demon of profanities, of smut, of rampant sexual
>desires. In Jesus name.  AMEN.

Obsessions: Very obsessed with sex and profanity - apparently he thinks about little else

Brain Trouble: Is probably mildly retarded

Favourite Fallacy: N/A - he never actually makes an argument

Positive Points: Unlikely to go postal

Obituaries:

Ed Crouton, crotchety self-styled netcop on alt.atheism, reaped his heavenly reward by speeding though a red light. A witness of the accident, Mr. Alan Ferris, said, "It was horrible. He ran the light and I heard him shout just before his Edsel was crushed under the eighteen-wheeler, "Oh, Fuck! Oh, Shit! Oh, Crotte! Oh, Freaking Jesusssssss!" "

Elroy Willis, the Massachusetts State Highway Patrolman in charge of the accident investigation reported that the trunk of the Edsel, the only part of the automobile which was still intact, was filled to the latch with pornographic magazines and films. The victim's son Ed Crouton, Jr. explained his father's obsession with "filth". "Dad always said that you had to get a little dirty to appreciate how clean the Lord could make you," said Ed Jr. "I remember him watching an Italian film about some girl named Sandy 15 times just to make sure that it was really vile. Then, he marched right down to the store that sold him that video and the 22 others and demanded that they get rid of the filth like they sold him."

Mrs. Crouton, when informed of the accident, stated, "God works in mysterious ways. Nobody really liked Ed. Maybe he will make some friends in heaven, or wherever his is now. LOL He had so much time of his hands that he would feverishly post hundred of nonsense messages a day to those folks on that atheism group. The good thing was it kept him out of my way."

When interviewed, Therion Ware, a member of the usenet group said, "Poor Ed, we hardly knew ye. That's not quite right. Poor Ed, we knew ye too well."

One person, though, did have a kind word to say about Mr. Crouton, but he requested to remain anonymous. Roy (name has been changed for obvious reasons) explained that he met Mr. Crouton when he was a prison guard and Roy was a young, good-looking inmate with sweet lips. Roy noted, "Mr. Crouton always kept me from being roughed up by the stronger prisoners and I will always be thankful to him for that. I think that I gave him a spiritual experience which will be the closest to heaven that he ever will approach."
-Liz

He fawt eVIL with all the stregnth he couwd muster Here lyes Oldguyteck, kyller of CUSSARDS! LOL! he difended the fayth aginst atheists and smut Frome his keyboard whereon he sat on his butt Yea, not spellchecking nor making anye sinse posting all the day with pisse in his depends He surely was a saint, this Oldguyteck Pounding out his [theistic]dreck LOL!
-Medieval Knievel

Edward Crouteau left our world yesterday,
when his god called him home as I think Ed might say.
Ed lived a full life I suspect he would claim,
but was haunted by Satan and his evil flame.
Ed hated bad words and was known to get cross,
he'd cry 'ZIP IT' you fools, thinking we gave a toss.
Ed was a man who had faith in his bible,
but for murder Ed said that his God's just not liable.
Edward Croteau was in love with the Pope,
and was known to wash out his kids' mouths with bar soap.
Ed thought he was right and all others were wrong,
and refused to acknowledge it's nice just to say Spong.
"You cussards are vile" Ed would scream all the time,
and I wanted to slap him much like a street mime.
Go away go away we would tell Oldguyteck,
dinner's over for you and you must pay the check.
-Elroy

John P. Boatwright

Religion: Fundamentalist Christian, sect unknown

AKA: Bleatwright, Boatwrong, Scrotemite, Bloatwhore, Shitforbrains, Blurtspew, Boring Idiot Barfworm, O' He Who Pisses On The Rug, Bloatox, Barfweasel, Burpwaste, Bilgeworm, Buttwriggler

Synopsis: Though earnest at first, has now realized all debate is fruitless and mostly fires off sarcastic wisecracks. Likes to taunt atheists about stupid things like O'Hair's embezzlement and Carl Sagan's deathbed conversion. Apparently has technical education yet uses the "Goddidit" explanation for absolutely everything. Puts a lot of effort into mathematically warping Genesis to fit the known history of the universe, but has little knowledge of mathematics or physics. Is ignored by serious atheist writers, except as a convenient whipping boy.

Unusual Features: Likes to take NASA pictures of deep space nebulae and Rorshach them into bodily parts of God, Jesus and/or Mother Mary.

Recent Update: Is attempting to prove that a God-day is 1.84 billion years so Genesis is scientifically correct about the age of the universe.

Favourite Fallacy: Personal incredulity

Positive Points: Writes short posts. Update: Has taken to writing long posts which leaves him without a positive point.

Possibility of Rationality: Long shot moderate. Update: Downgraded to none.

Links:
Boatwright's website
Daneel's Boatwright Files
Stix's versions

J<censored>y

AKA: hathaway, Nameless, JM, J-M, J-, X-JFactor, Sputtering Imbecile, The One Whose Name Shall Ne'er Again Be Uttered, McDumbass

Religion: Fundamentalist Christian, sect unknown

Synopsis: Probably the most persistent of our kooks, he is very earnest about proving the Old Testament is factually correct. Goes on and on about the remains of Noah's ark and Egyptian chariot parts in the Red Sea. Claims to possess bits of brimstone from Sodom and Gomorrah. Quotes hearsay from discredited archeologists but never provides any evidence or even references, often refering to "soon-to-be-released" videos and books. Thinks there are big conspiracies suppressing this stuff.

Nameless dedicates huge amounts of time and effort into posting to alt.atheism, to the point where he has apparently become dependent on it. This is a strange form of masochism indeed.

Update July 1998: Is no longer talking much about his hero Wyatt and his fictitious archeological finds of Biblical artifacts. Is now concentrating mostly on discussing sexual matters, where nameless takes the old testament patriarchal viewpoint. He is extremely mysoginistic, which is unusual for one so young. To him, women who are not virgins are "used up" and should be avoided like food containers in the store that have already been opened. The loss of a woman's virginity, to him, means the loss of some indefinable "innocence" which results in the woman not wanting to smile or hold hands anymore, but just paint herself up like Jezebel in order to flaunt her sexuality, which needless to say nameless considers abhorrent. In fact, virginity is so incredibly important to nameless, he has stated that his dream woman is one whose family he knows well, and who has been homeschooled and remained within eyeshot of her mother for her whole life. Of course one wonders what nameless will think about his own wife, should he ever obtain one, after the marriage is consumated.

Note: it is now clear that nameless is in his mid teens, he never interacts with women (except probably his mother), and unless arranged marriages become popular again, will remain alone for the rest of his life.

Unusual Features: It was decided some time ago to never mention his name again. Usually refered to as J<censored>y or "Nameless".
Has taken to adopting a wide variety of names, probably to avoid killfiles.

Favourite Fallacy: Ad nauseam

Positive Points: Rarely condemns anyone to Hell, usually remains cheerfully upbeat despite constant refutations and ridicule. Appears harmless.

Website: He's created his own website under the name "Dialectic Man" and its sole purpose is to "Expose the fraud on alt.atheism". He refers to one of Garrison Netzel's trolls as "standard" fraudulent activity. He seems to have weird love-hate feelings for some of those who defeat and ridicule him, refering to Stix as "either the friendliest atheist or your worst enemy." Accuses militant atheists of issuing death threats. The page is a bit of a hoot and worth a quick look. We look forward to its continuing development, and suggest that nameless put a doubleclick.com ad there or something to support himself. If he does I will personally write a perl script to generate him untold wealth.
URL: http://people.goplay.com/dialectic-man/

Possibility of Rationality: Slight (update: still hanging in there!)

Rec.org.mensa

AKA: Joe Long, Ross Williams, G Mark Stewart, various others

Religion: Various nonspecific flavours of Christianity

Synopsis: Apparently, this is a Usenet newsgroup devoted entirely to stroking the egos of a small, dedicated core of Internet-connected Mensa members. The requirements for joining Mensa are (please correct me if I'm wrong) the ability to score within a small, upper percentile on a standard WASP oriented IQ test. Needless to say, this sort of people aren't the most fun at parties.

Recently, for some reason, they have decided to dedicate a huge amount of personal time and energy having what is known as "flame wars" with alt.atheism.
Update: as of early 1998 they have pretty muched vanished from the newsgroup.

Some background for newbies:

A flame war is the concerted effort by one group of people, who know each other from their home newsgroup, to invade and annoy another newsgroup. Generally this takes the form of posting stupid, annoying things that are deliberately engineered to piss off the regulars of the target newsgroup.

The first first flame war was started by alt.bigfoot against rec.pets.cats in 1993 (I know the guy who started it. I'm serious). They started posting questions about how best to put down their girlfriend's cat without her finding out. Needless to say the regulars of rec.pets.cats were horrified by this and hilarity ensued, including calls to the local police where my friend lives. It even rated a mention in Wired magazine. You get the picture.

The invasion of ROM is similar, with the notable exception that they aren't fooling anyone. All they have done is proved that honesty, consistency and intelligence are not positively correlated with IQ scores.

Sam Lopez

Religion: Fundamentalist Christian, sect unknown

Synopsis: Thinks atheists are all mad at God. Usually not insane enough to be very interesting. Is unable to address any points made, and says little more than "I know you are but what am I".

Unusual Features: Has a 30 line sig. Update: has shortened his sig, but it now refers to talking integrated circuits.

Possibility of Rationality: Slight

Website: Sam Lopez: This is a Christian??

: Athiests dont CONVERT to anything.
: They are set apart (santified) for burning in Hell.
: (anathema maranatha).
: Everyone has a purpose.

Diana Newman

Religion: Mormon

Synopsis: After an absence of six months, Newman made an encore appearance on alt.atheism in March 1998, ostensibly as a result of a cross-post. "Having been made aware of that fact", she promised to leave the newsgroup protesting that her presence on alt.atheism was an innocent mistake. As of the latter part of July, she had still not left.

Her stated reason for remaining in alt.atheism is "to discuss atheism", but she devotes the preponderance of her writing towards demonstrating that atheism is fallacious and associated with evil. She spends an inordinate amount of time dictating the "proper" behavior and the "allowable" attributes for atheists, although she is quick to claim that theists are not reciprocally answerable to atheists. Newman disdainfully argues that since atheists do not believe in god, atheists do not have beliefs, and thus atheists� rights regarding beliefs do not exist.

Newman often uses a self-pitying, petulant mode of posting interspersed with a sanctimonious, haughty manner when caught in a contradiction or misstatement of fact. Her fallback position is always that theistic beliefs supersede any other type of conviction, and that those beliefs are only subject to the rationale of those who hold them. An obligation to respect those beliefs consequently falls upon the atheist. According to Newman, theists possess special "rights and privileges" that are unavailable to atheists. She contends that freedom *from* religion is not protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution, but, in fact, should be prohibited as a "dangerous" idea.

In an effort to further her objectives, she uses invidious tactics including, but not limited to: changing her position in an argument while maintaining the pretense that it was her original position, attempting to pit one atheist against another, flinging strawmen into the discussion, shifting the argument to peripheral issues, making unjust accusations, and lying. Her favorite stratagem is to phrase a declaration in such a weasel-like manner that when it is proven false or contradictory, she can allege it referred only to a unique circumstance.

Unusual Features: Newman�s posts present the recurring theme, echoed even in totally unrelated threads, that leaders of communist regimes (e.g., Pol Pot) committed atrocities because of atheism.

Favorite Fallacy: She insists that subjective experience is proof of God�s reality.

Positive Points: She lives in Utah.

Possibility of Rationality: None involving theism. In other areas, although dogmatic about sex and morality, she seems functional.

Jahnu Das

Religion: Hare Krishna

Synopsis: Has an utter disdain for humans and human achievement. Would prefer to live in primitive conditions. Prefers celibacy. Thinks he has perfect knowledge and all others are badly deluded. Thinks one can achieve Nirvana through chanting. Tends to post intensely for a while, get disgusted at the stupidity of the atheists, and vow never to post again. Is likely to be back soon.

Mannerisms: Has a consistently insulting and disdainful attitude. Dismisses all arguments with "you're an idiot."

Favourite Strawman: The universe popped out of a point, and then amoeba grew legs and learned to talk

Favourite Fallacies: Ad hominem, personal incredulity

Possibility of Rationality: Absolutely none. Don't even think about it.

Positive Points: Has as much disdain for Christians as atheists.

Jahnoovian logic 101.
=====================
Rule 1) If it's not in the vedas, or not what Jahnoo believes, it's wrong.
Rule 2) When presented with evidence, ignore it, bleat strawmen, and refer
back to rule 1).
Rule 3) Chanting to smurfs is the only way to gain knowledge. If questioned
about such bizarre practices, refer to rule 1).
Rule 4) When asked to defend the vedas, refer to rule 1).
Rule 5) When asked for evidence, refer to rule 1).
Rule 6) When all else fails, refer to rule 1).

Riley Sinder

Religion: None - not a person

Synopsis: Not a person - is a project of grad psych students at the Univerity of Chicago who are studying newsgroup interaction. Only talks about teaching fundamentalist Christianity in schools. Defines religion as "anything a group of people have in common." Is deliberately stupid to provoke reactions. Says the same few things over and over.

Links: Sage's Homepage
A Compilation of Physics Errors Made by The Sage

Defunct Kooks

The following kooks have died or otherwise vanished from alt.atheism, but will live forever in our memories.

Links:
Gladys' own website
The Limit of Gladys' Comprehension
An Untitled Poem by Stix
Brian Voth's in-depth analysis of Gladys

Psycho Dave's Brice Wellington FAQ

>And aftermuch thought and prayer, I have decided that I cannot leave after
>all. But the kid gloves come off.
>I will bluntly and completly expose
>atheism for the fantasy it is and continue to hope that those who suscribe
>to it will get their head out of the sand before it's too late.