Is The Secular Outpost a hoax?

 

Jeffery Jay Lowder said...

I take you at your word that you were not using the word "militant" in a pejorative sense. Given that many other theists use that adjective (or "avowed") to describe atheists in a pejorative sense, however, I think it's useful to be aware of that fact when deciding whether to use it yourself.

Related articles:

* Link: The Myth of Militant Atheism

http://secularoutpost.infidels.org/2012/06/comforting-illusions-reply-to-steve.html?showComment=1339345518455#c7174648093386000318

LINK: Philip Kitcher on Militant Modern Atheism

Posted by Jeffery Jay Lowder . . at 10/19/2011 03:35:00 AM

From the abstract:

    Militant modern atheism, whose most eloquent champion is Richard Dawkins, provides an effective and necessary critique of fundamentalist forms of religion and their role in political life, both within states and across national boundaries.

http://secularoutpost.infidels.org/2011/10/philip-kitcher-on-militant-modern.html

Needless to say, this is all very baffling. On the one hand, there’s a Jeffrey Jay Lowder at The Secular Web who indicates the phrase “militant atheist” is “pejorative.” Indeed, the same comment includes a link to the “myth” of “militant atheism.

On the other hand, there’s another (the same?) Jeffrey Jay Lowder at The Secular Web who plugs an address by Philip Kitcher on “militant atheism.” What is more, Kitcher is quoted as classifying Richard Dawkins as a militant atheist.

How do we reconcile this incongruity?

i) If we take both statements at face value, then Richard Dawkins doesn’t exist. If Dawkins is a militant atheist, and militant atheism is a myth, then Dawkins is a mythical figure, like Hercules or Paul Bunyan.

ii) Perhaps The Secular Outpost was hacked. Since, however, Jeff Lowder is a cybersecurity specialist, I assume The Secular Outpost has a pretty good firewall. So that explanation seems unlikely.

iii) Perhaps The Secular Outpost is a hoax blog. Come of think of it, there is some circumstantial evidence pointing in that direction. Take token female contributors who never post anything, viz. Andrea Weisberger, Louise Antony. That would give the hoax a politically correct façade.

Likewise, another contributor (Taner Edis) is ostensibly an atheist, yet he’s constantly defending Islam against secular critics like Sam Harris. But if Edis were a real person, or a real atheist, we wouldn’t expect him to stick up for Islam and attack secular critics of Islam.

Finally, it’s hard to believe that Keith Parsons is real. I mean, how plausible is it that a philosophy prof. with two earned doctorates would rely on hacks like John Spong and George Wells?

iv) This, in turn, raises the question of whether Jeff Lowder is a real person. On the one hand, I distinctly remember Jeff from college. I attended his Sceptics Anonymous cadre.

But perhaps that wasn’t the real Jeff. Maybe the “Jeff Lowder” I saw was a surgically altered double. Maybe the real Jeff is a Christian apologist whom PZ Myers abducted and imprisoned in his basement.

v) For that matter, even though I seem to remember seeing Jeff on multiple occasions, atheists assure us that eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable. So perhaps I’m misremembering.

vi) I could try to confirm Jeff Lowder sightings by checking my recollections against the recollections of Don Peter and Jon Sween. But atheists might chalk that up to a mass hallucination.

vii) And, of course, Don Peter and Jon Sween are both Christian, so that would make them biased reporters.

viii) Finally, it’s possible that I’m trapped in the Matrix. Jeff Lower is a computer-simulated character. As Sherlock Holmes used to say, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?”