The Troll History of the Secular Movement

I’ve been thinking more about the parallel universes we apparently inhabit within the secular movement, where there are factions on either side of a great rift who see certain narratives as being more useful to their ends, even where they hardly match anyone else’s memories or documented facts of the events in question. When I noticed a large number of the narratives against harassment policies were predicated on misreads of timing or misreads of intent or misreads of targeting of arguments, I put together my widely-referenced timeline to stomp some of those memes flat. This seems to me like evidence that one side of the divide is reality-based, and the other significantly less so. And the only remedy for that is chronicling the events so you can point to that chronicle and show why people are getting things so wrong so consistently.

This time, however, I thought it might be useful to put together a timeline of that parallel universe. I’ll extend this service mostly to benefit “our side”, so we can get our bearings whenever talking to someone who inhabits that other universe. Care to help crowdsource some of it for me while I travel today? No need for extensive references, just point out those things that people seem to think actually really happened and we’ll, I’m reasonably sure, eventually hone in on a close approximation of the alt-reality history of the movement. This all assumes the alt-reality idea that there is a single secular movement comprising atheism, skepticism and secularism that involves all practitioners thereof.

Allons-y!

I’ll get us started. Feel free to add some events (major or minor) in the comments below, and we’ll edit them into the mainline timeline whenever I’m in reach of wifi on my trek back to NS.

1957

  • March 9th: The Secular Antichrist was born.

1990

  • The modern Internet was born, from the forge of previous parts over previous decades. This is largely regarded as a bad move. The first flame war happened ten minutes later.
  • Skepchick and Freethought Blogs are secretly created. They immediately begin aggregating power behind the scenes for their planned takeover of the movement that has yet to coalesce. The Secular Antichrist is, of course, involved. All of this happens in accordance with the prophecies of Dennis Markuze.

1999

  • Men in the movement are bullied into buying calendars with nude ladies because the title is “SkepChick”. This is the first instance of misandry laid bare. Speculation abounds that this is an accidental exposure of the Skepchick feminist cabal.

2005

  • September: The veil of secrecy around the Skepchick feminist cabal is lifted (probably at great cost of lives and livelihoods by brave men). They go public for the first time under arch-feminist Rebecca Watson.
  • As a result of Skepchick’s unveiling, other women are no longer able to organize in the skeptical, atheist and secular movements under any circumstances whatsoever.

2006

  • Furthering the plot to harass men by showing them nude pictures, Skepchick.org sells a calendar as a fundraiser for the James Randi Educational Foundation. This money probably never makes it to the noble JREF, going instead to funding misandrist activities.
  • The Dark Lady Rebecca Watson uses subtle vocal modulations and successfully brainwashes the Skeptics Guide to the Universe into bringing her aboard, spreading the conspiracy and earning the enmity of a core group of stalwart warriors defending the skeptical community from such frivolous sarcasm and irreverent joviality that she presented, traits her predecessor Perry DeAngelis certainly did not share. Little did these brave young men know the depths of the villainy they were confronting.

2010

  • The Dark Lady draws moustaches on apples to prove that male apples are stinky and gross, in an attempt to create scientific evidence for her misandrist schemes.

2011

  • June: The End Times for the skeptical and atheist movements are portended when an event in an elevator involving the Dark Lady Rebecca Watson sets off a chain reaction that will culminate in World War 4. The possibility exists that this is a false flag — that the event in question was nothing but a ruse by the Dark Lady to spur on the secular Armageddon prematurely.
  • July: The other shoe drops, and the other half of the conspiracy is laid bare when freethoughtblogs.com goes live on the internet. The Secular Antichrist is revealed to be a strangely charismatic and angry teddy bear.

2012

  • May: FtB and Skepchick attack TAM. Harassment policies are totally mentioned AFTER the attack, not BEFORE. Not unrelated: Greedo shot first.
  • Thunderf00t joins Freethought Blogs, discovers the conspiracy and resists reprogramming. After he bravely attempts to sabotage the plans from within, Freethought Blogs runs him out of town on a rail, tars and feathers him, kicks him in the testicles repeatedly, paints moustaches on his photographs, and attempts to silence him throughout the entire internets. Happily, wordpress.com and youtube.com do not comply with Freethought Blogs’ edicts. He was never heard from again ever in any capacity whatsoever.
  • Dan Fincke, JT Eberhard and Chris Hallquist leave Freethought Blogs to spread the poison of feminism to Patheos. Never mind that their individual opinions on feminism vary greatly, they are obviously emissaries to assimilate the greatest religious discussion collective into the hivemind.
  • Avicenna attempts a failed takeover of the conspiracy in a bid to crown himself Pharaoh. Despite this treachery, the secular antichrist allows him to continue writing his excessively long screeds with the full knowledge that majority of affluent white men have laptops on their laps while reading, and therefore are destroying their sperm and ensuring the end of the caucasian race.
  • August 19th: Jen McCreight invents Atheism Plus, usurping atheism from its ideologically pure position of being rude to Ray Comfort, and making the divisive statement that women aren’t just for making sammiches and giving blow jobs.
  • August: Surly Amy, disappointed at the lack of attention paid to her at TAM, decides to doc-drop someone. Channeling her amazing Skepchick powers, she is able to prevent anyone from linking to or finding this blatant violation of privacy.
  • August: Ophelia Benson devotes an entire column to slamming Michael Shermer. She embeds a subliminal message which delays the reaction to December, at which point the feminist hordes descend on Shermer as planned. By a remarkable unrelated coincidence, at the same time he publishes an entire column devoted to correcting the record.
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The Troll History of the Secular Movement
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30 thoughts on “The Troll History of the Secular Movement

  1. 2

    Hey, Avicenna – why don’t you make some insinuating youtube videos about it? And, oh yeah, lemme quash your free speech a bit so you can complain specifically about that: “shhhhhhh!”

    Ps – I really like what you’re doing with your blog here. Thank you!

  2. 4

    An addition:

    2012

    August 19th: Jen McCreight invents Atheism+, usurping atheism from its ideologically pure position of being rude to Ray Comfort and making the divisive statement that women just don’t make sammiches and give blow jobs.

  3. 5

    Can someone help me out? When did FtB and Skepchick educate and empower women to defraud NiceGuysTM into paying child support after spermburgaling? Was that before 1999?

    I always forget when that happened and I can’t do the research right now because my meal-ticket (ie. husband) isn’t here to show me how to show me how to use the internet.

  4. 6

    In 2006, Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe interviewed Watson about the Skepchick calendar. Over the phone, she used her wiles to dupe the hosts into thinking she was “bright and witty”. By the end of the month, she’d infiltrated the cast, and for years, its listeners would fall prey to her homogametic influence.

  5. 7

    Ooo, ooo!

    August 2012: Surly Amy, disappointed at the lack of attention paid to her at TAM, decides to doc-drop someone. Channeling her amazing Skepchick powers, she is able to prevent anyone from linking to or finding this blatant violation of privacy.

    Same month: Ophelia Benson devotes an entire column to slamming Michael Shermer. She embeds a subliminal message which delays the reaction to December, at which point the feminist hordes descend on Shermer as planned. By a remarkable unrelated coincidence, at the same time he publishes an entire column devoted to correcting the record.

  6. 8

    Wait a minute… Are you saying the event with our Dark Lady in the elevator actually happened? I thought she made it all up so she can misandryily force all men to not do that (“that” being almost raping her in an elevator which is what she shrieked happened in that famous video where she spent hours ranting about men being slathering beats who do nothing but rape women in elevators).

  7. 9

    So we have a secular antichrist and a dark lady. I think we are missing a third role to create an unholy trinity.
    I think somebody should put up a poll to elect them. Of course knowing PZ he would win leading to some interesting theological problems.

  8. 10

    Your Anti-Christ Troll History: 1957 March 9th: The Secular Antichrist was born.

    Correction: I (the ultimate secular Anti-Christ, Troll) was born April, 12, 1955. ROFL! πŸ˜€

    Love yr & pz’s work, keep it happening M8! πŸ˜€ πŸ˜‰

  9. 11

    You forgot the time around 2010 when Arch-Misandrist Watson made severe fun of men Internet-wide by putting funny fake mustaches on rotten apples. Why mustaches and not barrettes? Because misandry!

  10. 12

    The Trophy Wife’s birthday and my birthday are both September 10. The Secular Antichrist’s birthday and my son’s birthday are both March 9. Therefore…???

  11. 13

    And here’s some well-timed breaking news:

    October 2012: Greta Christina announces she has cancer, and asks for donations to help pay for her mortgage and other expenses during her recovery period, when she is unable to work.

    January 2013: Greta Christina is spotted in a Las Vegas casino, wearing comfortable shoes.

  12. 14

    1990: Consider changing your first sentence to: β€œIn the land of Mordor, in the fires of Lake Geneva, the Dark Lord Sern forged in secret a master ‘Net, to control all others.”

    The Hitchiker’s reference would be perfect right after that.

    Also, regarding 1990, would it be worthwhile to mention that Rebecca was ten years old then?

    —-
    Why 1999? Didn’t the calendars start later?

    —-
    2012: Consider changing the last line in the Thunderfoot paragraph to: β€œHe has never been heard from again.”

  13. 15

    I hate to be pedantic, but you got the date wrong on this one.

    “1957 – March 9th: The Secular Antichrist was born.”

    It was 1952, in San Francisco when I was born. Go ahead, google it.

    Your Friend,

    The Secular Antichrist

  14. 16

    Look, I know that being an antichrist is fun, and that everyone wants to do it, but the reality of the matter is that we can only have one. We need other positions, too, if this team is going to work out. If you’re all antichrists, who will be the Great Whore, the Emperor of Nightmares, and the goalie?

  15. 19

    Shouldn’t a troll history of the secular movement be titled something more like,

    “In which many human males and females, some humans who are neither, and one versifying cephalopod decide that religion is false and try to convince everyone of this. At first the straight white guys think they are the only ones who care that religion is false, and then some of them realize that they are not. There are ninety-four high-profile blasphemy arrests, thirty-nine church-state separation cases, five hundred and nineteen secular billboards, (five hundred and twelve of which are hideous) one dissection of a giraffe, and seventy-nine million, eight hundred forty-four thousand, three hundred and two internet flame wars, most of which are not about religion, but rather about DEEP RIFTS internal to the secularism movement. One of the secularists has a dungeon and a great many tentacles, but this turns out to be less sexy than it sounds. Some of the human males seem to have black feelings for the human females, but the females mostly just ignore them or go away because human romance is boring and stupid and the males can never seem to decide who they hate the most. In the end quite a lot of people, but far from all of them, are convinced that religion is false. There are nine musical numbers, and three that are unmusical, but there is no gelato at all.”

  16. 20

    Tony: Good point. Boobquake is another blatant bit of misandry and indoctrination into the cult of feminism.

    Scr[utationary?] Archivist: 1999 is actually the first instance of the SkepChick calendar by magicdave and isn’t a nude calendar — ERR I MEAN REBECCA WATSON REBECCA WATSON NUDE WHORE SLUT PRUDE

    Robert Bauer: Probably, but I didn’t want to buffer-overflow WordPress.

  17. 22

    You’re completely missing out the conferences:

    An attempt is made by FTB to make a public control grab on all atheist and sceptic conferences worlwide (to bolster their previously only hidden influences). DJ Grothe heroically attempts to still the tide and is proclaimed a heretic. All sceptical conferences are forced to accept the feminazi manifesto – any participant engaging in behaviour or dress deemed sexual by the skepchicks will be evicted and coffee is a forbidden beverage. All conference policies explicitly forbid foot-biting at any related event.

    ^.^ This is fun.

  18. 23

    You should also insert all the “splits”.. something like:

    PZ Myers excomunicates all scientists who talk to Christians, as “accomodationists”, thus splitting the movement.
    PZ Myers excomunicates all Christian sceptics who agree with evolution as “not-really-sceptics”, thus splitting the movement.
    PZ Myers excomunicates all atheist men who talk about women as “sexists”, thus splitting the movement.
    PZ Myers excomunicates all atheists who talk about the reality of race differences as “racists”, thus splitting the movement.
    PZ Myers excomunicates all YouTubers from the sceptical movement (except those still on FTBs), thus splitting the movement.
    All white males unwilling to be assimilated into the FTB hivemind are billed as mysoginist bigots and expelled from the movement.

  19. 28

    I know you play games together you and Russell, but I don’t know which ones…D&D was a bad guess (on purpose)…….if I was to have a serious guess, I bet you play Starcraft.

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