I suggested, in one of my earlier posts, that Dennis Markuze changed his rant every few weeks in order to avoid SPAM filters.
I no longer think this is the case.
A little more searching around seems to indicate that many of the changes are the result of direct responses to particular individuals. These responses are then incorporated into the main rant, and afterwards propagated anywhere Mr. Markuze can paste it. This causes a sort of evolution in his writings, and creates a lot of the apparent non-sequiturs which make his rants so confusing.
Why would he do this? I suspect he can't tell us apart. He doesn't think of the people he spams as individuals. The people whose blogs he dislikes are basically a faceless horde - atheists, the enemies of God - and anything one of us learns, the rest then know. He doesn't answer when people ask him what he's talking about, because the question makes no sense: clearly, we know already. Even the "big names" aren't really individuals, they're just particularly distinct manifestations of the protean evil known as atheism.
At this point, unless Mr. Markuze cares to explain himself, I'm done. Conversations have to happen between (or among) people, and there's no point in trying to talk to someone who can't distinguish between me (an individual) and a rather large group of other people. So, until and unless we actually have a conversation, I'm just going to delete any of Mr. Markuze's tragic irrelevancies. DM, if you read this, I sincerely hope you can find the help you need.
Regular blogging will resume tomorrow, with the next installment of Reflections of a Deranged Cultist.
So.... essentially he views you as part of the Borg collective?
ReplyDeleteI think so, yes. Borg, or perhaps Zerg, with James Randi in the role of Overmind.
ReplyDeleteSeveral people have suggested that he's schizophrenic (in the technical, rather than the popular, use of the term). I'm not really qualified to diagnose him, but I'm inclined to agree.
Interesting. Is he afraid, then, that the atheists and agnostics of the world will assimilate him? Wouldn't that make his resistance futile? :)
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure about schizophrenia, though, while they are wildly paranoid, they're generally content to argue with the voices in their head. And ... (this is probably revealing way more than I should) since I had some similar symptoms during a psychotic break many years ago, I joined a board for schizophrenia. Many of them didn't exhibit that sort of behavior, they were generally disorganized with their thinking, but other than that they seemed semi-normal online (with the exception of the long gaps between times they would post, most of them aren't terribly social, and don't interact with others a lot)
No, I think you'd find this person in real life is far more ordinary than you'd imagine. Maybe a touch narcissistic, or perhaps a tinge sociopathic with a searingly hot temper.
Besides, it's not like he's saying if you don't believe God is going to eat you, or anything like that. ;)
Ahem.. and on that note, I've really enjoyed the Deranged Cultist series. I spotted the Cthulhu references early on. I knew what was going on.. :) Sad that some people can't separate fact from fiction.
"No, I think you'd find this person in real life is far more ordinary than you'd imagine."
ReplyDeleteIt's certainly possible, and in some ways I hope that's actually the case. I'm speculating based on very limited data*, especially since all my data comes from his online behavior. I have no idea what he might be like in person; I don't even know how old he is.
So it's possible that he's relatively young, socially maladroit, or very mildly retarded (in the clinical sense, again**). Any, some, or none of those might be true. But the overall behavior is so odd that I find myself looking for patterns, to make it at least a little bit explicable.
I'm glad you're enjoying the Deranged Cultist. He's really, really fun to write.
* In fact, I'm mainly speculating in hopes of goading him into actually telling me something about himself. The part where he (fairly clearly) doesn't want to do so is just another piece of the puzzle.
** I worked in a MHMR for a while, years ago, and I could easily picture some of the residents behaving/reacting this way. It would fit with the apparent immaturity, the somewhat obsessive nature of his activity, and
Forgot to finish that last sentence:
ReplyDeleteIt would fit with the apparent immaturity, the somewhat obsessive nature of his activity, and his unwillingness to tell us about himself or engage in direct interaction.
I've become quite interested in DM myself. I've heard some speculate that he is an atheist trying to make Fundamentalists look bad. When you follow through with some of his links, he actually sends you to content that (to me) thoroughly thrashes the ideology of Fundamentalism. Sorta odd to provide content that undermines your rant.
ReplyDeleteIf that's not an accurate view, then DM sounds to me like a very hateful person. He sounds like he'd kill any of us if he had the chance and if he could get away with it.
Nope. His god wouldn't mind one bit.
I don't know. Since he seems to focus his efforts on "atheist" sites, I doubt he's a Poe. I mean, surely that would be redundant? Surely?
ReplyDeletePlus, there's still the ridiculous volume of his efforts, and his refusal (inability?) to really converse. I suppose he could be a deranged atheist just as easily as a deranged Nostadamus-Christian, but I have yet to come up with any circumstance in which his incoherespam would be accomplishing anything.
Whatever his actual goal, there's a power trip wrapped up in this somewhere. I'm not sure whether he's actually hateful, or whether he's just desperate to be perceived as dangerous, but there's something... some need that this fills.