I probably won’t be around for awhile. I’ve been doing some introspection tonight, trying to get to the root of my fascination with pathological liars. Well, along with doing some more rather heavy inner searching, I’ve decided to write a somewhat formal treatment on the subject. It’ll be a good writing exercise, if nothing else. Hopefully in a few weeks or so, I’ll have something comprehensive, as well as cogent (fingers crossed!).
Psychological investigation has revealed that lying is and has always been a ubiquitous facet of the human condition. I hope to go into the history, the science, as well as the way the internet has paved broad new thoroughfares for liars to hock their wares upon. Can internet prevarication be considered a new art form? And how does religion play into all this? I mean, these folks seem to be walking a knife’s edge between ethical mandate and some inner drive to revel in their deceitful natures, don’t they? Like I said, it all fascinates me, so I’ll try to follow through on this just as quickly as I can, in between other projects.
If things wind up taking longer than expected, I’ll pop in for an update or two. Thanks for your patience, ye handful of visitors to this blog. Until I return, feel free to browse. 
UPDATE: Wow, a lot of hits the last couple of days. People love a ruckus!
UPDATE: Might have to put this stuff on hold for awhile. I have some writing to do that might actually make me a little money, which is always foremost on my list of necessities, unfortunately. But I’ll try to keep checking in when I can, and commenting on cl’s more outrageous stuff as time and interest permit. Oh, and here’s a hint: Keep an eye on what cl ignores, and you’ll learn a lot about him. You know, read between the lines. LOL!
For those who care, anyway.
As long as you’re exploring a subject and he’s a case study then ok, but otherwise I’d say your “investigation” of him is dangerous and kinda creepy.
If you just look at all believers as indulgers who feel their indulgence is being threatened, then just about all their nonsense makes sense. Some literally feel threatened, like they won’t be able to indulge anymore or like they used to (i.e. – those upset with removals of religious icons from public spaces, being denied Christian invocations before government meetings, etc). Some need to impose their beliefs on others as a means of hightening the high from the indulgence. Still others crave respect for being an indulger and of course the indulgence. Anyway, as a means to those ends some will say or do anything. It provokes pity of course, but also contempt. The contempt is directly related to the amount and degree of shenanigans.
Dangerous in what way? How would it be “creepy”? Because we shouldn’t deprive people of their indulgences or what?
Mockery is an excellent way, I think, of removing holdover religious commitments in someone already tending toward disbelief. But I don’t think you’re saying mockery is dangerous or creepy. What is exactly?
Creepy in an obsessive stalker sort of way.
I have no idea how or why you brought up depriving people of indulgences. Perhaps you could explain how anything in my comment prompted that. I’ve never promoted deprivation of purely self indulgences, and I don’t see where I did so in that comment. Of course that doesn’t mean I won’t try to dissuade one from an indulgence that I find fault with (i.e. – faith, heroin, cutting, et al).
I agree that mockery and similarly less genteel approaches have merit and I am certainly not one of those accommodationist atheists. I have no problem with this site mocking cl, however having an entire site for that singular purpose seems quite excessive an indicative of a creepy, obsessive self indulgence. The jackass deserves such roasting in spades, however my concern is for the one seemingly consumed by doing it. That is why my hope is that the investigation is merely a part of a greater investigation of faith indulgers who are, like cl, certifiable loons.
PhillyChief,
You said the investigation was dangerous and creepy. Then you wrote in the following paragraph, “If you just look at all believers as indulgers who feel their indulgence is being threatened, then just about all their nonsense makes sense.” Since you didn’t otherwise explain the danger, I thought the second paragraph might have furnished the explanation. That is, taunting the Christian Loon is dangerous because it would deprive him of his indulgences and then who knows how he’d act.
Following your explanation, I conclude that the second paragraph was unrelated to the first and you didn’t explain the danger in your first post, perhaps because you thought it was obvious.
But I never implied you favored depriving someone of their “indulgences.” My (false) impression had been that you feared doing things that would effect such deprivation because doing so was creepy and dangerous. I thought you might be saying that this blog was creepy and dangerous in that way.
Let me add, I do think the blog serves a public service, regardless of any resulting higher investigations. The Christian Loon’s blog, twim, was a trap for the unwary, and FanBoy has rendered the Loon transparent. The Loon, no doubt intentionally, uses a moniker infeasible to google.
Hey, Philly. I think the part that’s always fascinated me about cl is the fact that he’s a dedicated liar who’s also ostensibly dedicated to a belief system that supposedly promotes truth telling, including some pretty strong proscriptions against lying. I have to admit, every time he does it again I’m flabbergasted; his mentality seems so different from my own that sometimes I feel I’m looking at another species. I mean, he doesn’t simply bend the truth to make himself or his beliefs appear in a better light. In the name of upholding the truth, which I assume is at least somewhat sincere on his part, he dismantles the truth on a regular basis to a degree that seems obscene to me. Admittedly, I DO hold him in contempt for doing this, but he’s so outrageous in his antics that I also find myself drawn to the mystery. He’s only the second person like this whom I’ve interacted with for an extended period, and both times I’ve found it hard to look away, like the proverbial traffic accident. Admittedly, this probably puts me in the category of ‘pursuers of morbid fascinations’. It’s not the first time, probably won’t be the last, but it also stimulates me intellectually, and as this particular fascination also plays into the larger context of my interest in culturally inculcated delusions I’ll probably keep pursuing it in assorted venues, at least until I tire of it, and move on to something else.
Nice touch: I see you use a WordPress theme called “Contempt.”
You noticed! Wasn’t sure anybody was gonna catch that. Good show, Stevo!
Victory over cl. (At least by his standards.) CL has banned me from commenting on twim.
We can demonstrate a huge weight of evidence showing that cl is a lying Christian Loon, but this banishment should prove it to any honest fan. The Christian Loon maintains on the masthead of his blog:
Yet, when he can’t cope with “dissent,” the Christian Loon simply bans the “dissenter.” JT now appears like a saint. He banned the Loon, but opened a whole thread to discuss it, whereas our cowardly Loon bans behind the backs of his readers.
I consider this a serious lie, not like much of his puerile sockpuppeting, which puts his sleazy character on display but doesn’t materially do any harm. cl appeals to the general public based on his support of “free speech.” This is why I condescended to post to a Christian blog: cl’s guarantee against censorship seemed to mark a world of difference between him and the Christian Right authoritarians and even the moralistic atheists. It’s all a lie. When the Christian Loon want’s to avoid dissent and mockery, he not only bans but bans surreptitiously while continuing to brag loudly about his support for “free speech.”
So (again by cl’s standards), I join St. Peter with a win over cl under my belt. My guess, Fanboy, is that you too will discover you’ve won, should you try to post.
The last comment that Christian Loon censored was a reply to Adamoriens, which I posted at his blog at http://adamoriens.wordpress.com/2012/07/18/the-warfare-is-mental-on-religious-disagreement/
[...] there’s a new rumor flying around the less-reputable corners of the internet: that I banned Stephen R. Diamond from commenting here. This, like his many other [...]
The Christian Loon now claims he didn’t ban me. No, he just help my messages in his spam file until the discussion was over! The Loon’s standard distinction without a difference.
“No, he just help my messages…”
Should be “held my messages…
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