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The Real McCoy, Part 2

Published

on November 4, 2010

A friend of an acquaintance of mine using facial recognition software has determined that lesdeuxparfois is indeed Chaplain LTC William McCoy. People have commented on the fact that his denomination is gay friendly, so why am I exposing his swinging sexcapades online if I personally don't care if he is a swinger? Well, one good reason is that he is not friendly to non-believers at all in his published statements. I don't understand why others are willing to give him a pass on his bigotry towards non-believers as long as he doesn't denigrate people based on their race or sexual orientation. I guess some people just don't see religious supremacy at all, even if it is biting them in the ass.

I'm doing this because of McCoy's public statements regarding nonbelievers in the military. He has repeatedly stated that a unit's misfortunes, problems, and setbacks are directly caused by its non believing members. This incites hostility and is incompatible with a military composed of members of varying faiths and of no faith. There can be no unit cohesion if the unit is divided in such a manner. If non-believing members are blamed every time problems occur, how can this not divide a unit and cause tensions between members? If a chaplain is unable to counsel the military members in his unit, platoon, or squadron; then perhaps he should not be a military chaplain. Perhaps he should simply be a church pastor so that he will only encounter those whose beliefs he already agrees with.

This sorry episode has also illustrated that the scapegoating endemic to charismatic Christianity is crossing over to more moderate denominations. Quite a few denominations of charismatic Christianity scapegoat non members and those of differing beliefs as being "demon possessed". Now Chaplain McCoy's scapegoating is not quite as colorful as a Pentecostal Christian's scapegoating, but it is just as irrational.

God Using Cancer for Good?

Published

Anna Lemma

on November 4, 2010

My mother in law has just survived lifesaving major surgery. My husband, daughter, and myself were on the shuttle to the hospital today and I heard the most jaw dropping bit of arrogance in a long time. At the front of the bus, one of the medical center's workers was talking to the bus driver. The man seemed to be a very in your face religious type.

The man's wife had divorced him some time back, but he was still wanting to get back together with her. He told the bus driver that she was diagnosed with cancer. And that "God was working in a mysterious and good way to bring his ex-wife back into his life because she needed his help." I kid you not, he actually said this.

I thought this was the most revolting and self centered thing I have heard in a long time. His ex wife may be dying from cancer and all he could think of was how he was feeling. How is getting a serious form of cancer good? What about what his ex-wife is going through? He seemed to not have any awareness of her as an individual apart from himself? What happens should she not survive? Is that too a "good" message from god?

If he was like this in the past, no wonder she divorced him. He also speculated out loud to the bus driver that his ex-wife was "angry at God." What an arrogant ass.

The Secret Lives of Atheists

Published

Anna Lemma

on October 19, 2010

The dungeon reminds me of a certain chaplain.

The Real McCoy?

Published

Anna Lemma

on October 11, 2010

Recently, a reader of this blog forwarded me quite an interesting email. I've spent sometime thinking whether or not I should post this story while I was researching and writing it. It seems that a particular Army chaplain and his wife may have a secret personal life. Apparently, someone found some very, very, sexy photos of US Army Chaplain Lt Col William McCoy online and recognized him as being a chaplain for the 21st TSC in Germany. Chaplain McCoy is an Evangelical Lutheran Chaplain.

LtCol William McCoy (from his Amazon blog)

The base newsletter does not mention Chaplain McCoy after May of 2009. Perhaps he is staying out of the limelight after the little dust up with Gen. Petreaus in September of 2008. This is covered here by Chris Rodda in the Huffington Post here and here. Most of his book is fluffy feel good Christianity, until the end of the book, where he starts hard selling Jesus. The book was advertised to be helpful for all military members, not just Christians. It was endorsed for this purpose by Gen Petraeus.

Someone has a yahoo login and is a member of some interesting yahoo groups.

A screenshot of yahoo account lesdeuxparfois.

The photo appears to be Chaplain Lt Col William McCoy. This person goes by the name lesdeuxparfois on various sex and swinger sites. Check it out yourself using ydetector. His avatar images change every so often. Evangelical Lutheran Chaplain by day, and swinger by night? Personally, I don't care who sleeps with who. But Chaplain McCoy has stated that those who don't believe in a God bring misfortune upon their unit mates. He publicly stated the following in his book, Under Orders: A Spiritual Handbook for Military Personnel :

"Belief in God is a foundational factor. Once you do away with God as a given truth, all other things are immediately affected by that. For instance, once God does not exist you suddenly have no reference to greatness outside of yourself, and no 'revelation' outside of yourself. The greatest thing in life suddenly becomes something or someone else, like yourself perhaps. ..."

Wow, what arrogance saying that those who don't believe in a god are somehow not as morally developed as himself. And this is supposed to be in a book for all military members? What about the 21% of military members that don't have a religious affiliation? Yeah, lets throw them under the bus in order to make the 79% fell better about themselves and give them scapegoats when problems occur. Well, Chaplain McCoy, perhaps you shouldn't live in a glass house when you throw stones like the following:

"Only my goodness can help me contribute to the betterment of my unit or team. When I realize that sin is an agent, I can more quickly identify my own tendency to corrupt a group and bring havoc to what needs cohesion and team confidence. My sin can also make my agenda more important than my unit's agenda and thus lead to unit failure."

Isn't cavorting around with others wives and partners considered a sin in Christianity? I just had to use the word, cavorting. Isn't he violating his oaths as a Lutheran Chaplain and military officer (UCMJ anyone?) by stepping out on his wife? Even if she doesn't care? And didn't Jesus really dislike hypocrites and liars in the Bible? According to the Chaplain's logic, his unit must really be quite a failure with this much sinning going on.

At Adult Friend Finder (watch out for malware).

Here is a quote about sinning from the Table of Contents, Chapter 7.

Fight the Real Fight. Sin is irrelevant in today's world, but it still makes its impression on each of us.

The age old problem of sin is undertaken in a way to enable the reader to understand it without defining sin for each person. Ultimately, there is no list of sins any greater than another list. We all have issues specific issues with regard to our sin both personally and judicially before God. We should realize that sin is normal and is the reason we are entitled to God's grace so freely. Without sin, we'd be perfect. It is part of our makeup and we must understand it to live better.

So we have to sin in order to get to heaven and to have a better life? Very interesting, a rationalization of why he needs to sin. Personally, I don't believe in the concept of sin myself. If swinging is okay for him and his wife, it's okay with me. But don't get up on your high horse and tell me you are a better person because you have faith in an unproven supernatural deity. You aren't any better than anyone else.

lesdeuxparfois explains his interests and hobbies at Passion.com (Click to enlarge images).

I really like his explanation of his interests, a real lounge lizard.

What types of sexual activities turn you on?
Giving Oral Sex, Threesomes, Mutual Masturbation, Voyeurism

Have you ever had cybersex?
I've done it so many times that I've forgotten how to type with two hands.

A more detailed profile.

Letting it all hang out. Thankfully dear reader, I've blurred it out.

The person who sent me the information alleges that Chaplain McCoy has made unwanted advances towards young trusting women in the past. If those who have been hurt by this man are willing to come forward with evidence, then I will certainly have more to write. But for now all I can say is that Chaplain McCoy is a complete hypocrite if he is indeed lesdeuxparfois. I invite the readers of this blog to checkout lesdeuxparfois yourself, but watch out, these sites are infested with malware.

Chaplain McCoy is endorsed by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA), South Carolina Synod.

Update:

The lesdeuxparfois account has now been removed. Looks I struck a nerve. That was quick. Some people have asked if this account was for real. The account info said that the account was started in 2007 and was last accessed a few days before this post was published. I have many more screenshots of the account that I will be posting in the next few days.

For those who are questioning if this is the same person, look at the images of his face. It appears to be the same person. Notice a similar watch in both the clothed images from his Amazon blog and the nude headless photo. The profile information lists similar hobbies and interests. But the most interesting information that a couple of days after I posted this, lesdeuxparfois removed his account. If someone were trying to spoof an account to harm his reputation, why take it down so soon?

Another update:
Some of Chaplain McCoy's personal websites are being taken down. I have posted more information here.

Reference Information:

Personal website - (removed)

Radaris personal website

Book Bio on Amazon (removed) or here (removed)

base newsletter

picture in uniform

ydetector

More on Being a Dick

Published

Anna Lemma

on August 31, 2010

From Scenes From a Multiverse by Jonathan Rosenberg

Phil Plait Says "Don’t Be A Dick."

Published

Anna Lemma

on August 29, 2010

Phil Plait - Don't Be A Dick from JREF on Vimeo.

Here is Phil's response to some of the criticism of the talk.

When I saw Phil's video, the main question running through my mind was "Who exactly is he speaking about?" I've never seen anyone in person simply be ugly and name call someone simply because they are religious. Is he talking about drive by comments on blogs or news stories in reply to someone's ignorant religious sayings? Or perhaps on his own blog? Or like numerous others am I getting the wrong message from Phil's talk? Perhaps he meant it as general advice, but it came out looking like he was personally slamming part of his audience and being a dick himself by calling them dicks. And why did Hal Bidlack get up an address everyone? Defensive much, Hal?

Everyone has beliefs that they probably shield from too much skepticism, but someone who calls themselves a skeptic should acknowledge that this is what they are doing. Martin Gardner was a religious skeptic who agreed and admitted that even though he believed in a god, there was no proof for said god's existence. He said that it even though there was no evidence, it made him happy. A theistic skeptic like Hal Bidlack would be a more honest skeptic if he would emulate Martin Gardner's attitude instead of trying to persuade skeptics to not be skeptical towards supernatural religious claims.

Phil did not give a very good definition of the word dick that he was using. It seems that being a dick is a condition where a person is does not act like Phil would in a given situation.

Some people are claiming I was saying we need to be milquetoasts. That’s ridiculous. I was very clear that anger has its place, that we need to be firm, and that we need to continue the fight.

Some were claiming they have a right to be dicks — I’m bemused by this, as of course you have that right. But that doesn’t mean it’s most effective, or that you should be one.

Others took issue with my initial question, asking how many people were "converted" to skepticism by having a skeptic yelling at them and insulting them. In fact, at least one person said that method does work and worked on them. That’s good for them, but given what we know about the way people argue and change their views on issues, the majority of people will become further entrenched when confronted in that way.

In other words, being a dick not only usually doesn’t work, it almost always works against the bigger goal of swaying the most people we can.

Perhaps I should have been more clear on what I mean by being a dick. I thought I had been clear, but a lot of people seem to think that I meant anyone who gets upset, or angry, or argues with emotion. I wouldn’t include satire in that category, or comedic work, or even necessarily using insults; tone and attitude count here. Think of it this way: when someone argues that way do you think to yourself, "What a dick"? I don’t; at least not necessarily. I think that way when the person belittles their opponent, uses obviously inflammatory language, or overly aggressively gets in their face.

Y’know. Being a dick.

Again, to be clear, I did not say we should back down when confronted. I did not say we should be weak against ignorance. I did not say we shouldn’t be angry. I did not say we should be passionless. In fact, I argued the exact opposite.

We need our anger, or strength, and our passion.

Matt Dillahunty over at Atheist Experience observes that Phil is making an argument from ignorance and is cherry picking.

First of all, who is Phil talking about? This seems a bit quixotic and exaggerated to me. Where are these people who scream in your face on behalf of skepticism? Where are these people whose primary tactic is to yell at someone and call them a retard? Since Phil didn't provide any examples to support the claim, we can only guess.

Secondly, this is a prime example of a straw man argument - setting up an issue that is easily toppled instead of the actual issue. Not only has he not provided specific examples, or demonstrated that this is a significant problem, he seems to be engaging in an extremely flawed informal poll (read: emotional appeal) to get his point across. The first question is a fair skeptical inquiry (have you changed your mind about something?). The second question is about as far from it as one can possibly stray.

If Phil had really wanted to discuss better ways of communicating skeptical views to others like he says in Part 1 of his reply, then perhaps he should have clarified himself further after Hal Bidlack got up and spoke.Personally, I enjoy reading or seeing exchanges where some bible thumping zealot gets taken down verbally. I also know some religious people who enjoy that sort of thing as well.

When talking to someone who has differing ideas, I don't attack their ideas directly. I find it more effective to make fun of the extreme in their religious institutions or its more extreme followers. This way we have a common ground in mocking the extreme example, and it may give the person something to think about later. I think that this has happened to a couple of people that I have known. But the process takes years. I also find that asking the right questions (going Socratic on their asses) and then not expecting an answer right away also may give someone food for thought.

Get Well Hitch

Published

Anna Lemma

on August 29, 2010

I saw this tribute and get well video to Christopher Hitchens over at The Thinking Atheist. I was sorry to hear that he is being treated for esophageal cancer.

Get well soon Hitch, the world needs your eloquence.

The Amazing Spam Overload

Published

Anna Lemma

on August 25, 2010

Blogger lately has been overrun with spam comments in most of the blogs. I've added a couple of new widgets to my sidebar. I have especially added a widget to display the last 10 comments, so I can see posts that are spammed with junk comments. Here is where I downloaded them from.