Ooh! Another Atheist Sex Scandal?

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Karen Stoltznow and Ben Radford at a December 2012 conference.

You may recall that in 2011 Rebecca Watson — the total smokin’ hotness of atheist chickdom — celebrated her victimhood after some guy tried to hit on her at an atheist conference. The silliness of it all prompted Vox Day to comment on the misery of atheist guys:

No wonder they’re so furious at God. He created all those lovely women with those beautiful breasts and they aren’t even allowed to even talk to them.

Basically, atheism seems to attract a lot of game-deficient Gamma dudes who figure atheist chicks are easy (correct), but then presume this might mean some hot action for Gammas (incorrect).

OK, so fast-forward, and the New Total Smokin’ Hotness of Atheist Chickdom, Karen Stoltznow steps forward to tell her tale:

Sexual harassment is an uncomfortable topic to discuss with colleagues, especially when you’re the victim. . . .

(As if it is easy for the guy she accuses to discuss it.)

According to gossip about me, I gave him mixed-signals, I led him on, I’m flirtatious, and I’m a dirty little slut. . . .

(Is this true? I mean, was it only “gossip”?)

Five months after I lodged my complaint I received a letter that was riddled with legalese but acknowledged the guilt of this individual. They had found evidence of “inappropriate communications” and “inappropriate” conduct at conferences. . . . They assured me they were disciplining the harasser but this turned out to be a mere slap on the wrist. . . .

(He wasn’t burned at the stake.)

Those who didn’t know the extent of the harassment reacted as though we simply don’t play well together in the sandbox. “Why don’t you two just get over it and move on!” The matter was misconstrued as a lover’s tiff, or that we were a couple in an on again, off again relationship. . . .

(Were you ever a “couple” at all?)

To some people the news didn’t come as much of a surprise. They “knew” there was something wrong, especially with the benefit of hindsight. “I thought something was up when you two stopped working together.” Others felt they could finally admit to me what they think about him. “I never liked him.” “I’ve always thought he was a creepy guy!”, “He’s a weirdo!” and, “I unfriended him on Facebook because of the sexist shit he says and the perverted stuff he posts.” One woman confessed, “No wonder my female friends roll their eyes at me when I tell them he’s single!” . . .

(OK, I’ll stipulate this guy is creepy. But you have not yet told us whether you were ever in a “couple” with him, or explained why people may have thought you were.)

This man is a predator who collects girls of a certain “type”. His targets are chubby, shy, lonely, and insecure, just like I used to be.

(Oh. You used to be his “type,” but now you’re the Total Smokin’ Hotness of Atheist Chickdom, and so — under the bus!)

In the early days I looked up to him and was flattered that he seemed to respect my work. I quickly spotted some red flags but I disregarded them. These became too big to ignore, so I called it all off. The rejection was ego shattering to him at first, and then met with disbelief.

(Hell hath no fury like a Gamma dumped.)

This was followed by incessant communication of a sexual nature, including gifts, calls, emails, letters, postcards, and invites to vacation with him in exotic places so we could “get to know each other again”. He wouldn’t leave me alone. This wasn’t love. It was obsession. His desperation only increased when I met another man. He continued his harassment as though my boyfriend (who is now my husband) didn’t even exist.

(Excuse me for interrupting again — now we’re getting to the good part — but why not have your boyfriend tell the creep to buzz off?)

From late 2009 onwards I made repeated requests for his personal communication to cease but these were ignored. He began manipulating the boundaries by contacting me on the pretext of it being work-related. Then came the quid pro quo harassment. He would find opportunities for me within the company and recommend me to television producers, but only if I was nicer to him. One day the company offered me an honorary position that I’d worked hard for, but he warned me that he had the power to thwart that offer. I threatened to complain to his employer, but he bragged that another woman had accused him of sexual harassment previously and her complaints were ignored. According to him, she had been declared “batshit crazy”. Then, he saw me at conferences and took every opportunity to place me in a vulnerable position. This is where the psychological abuse turned physical and he sexually assaulted me on several occasions.

“Officer, arrest that man!”

Well, isn’t that what you think Karen Stoltznow would have done? If somebody “sexually assaulted” you, wouldn’t you call the cops?

For some reason, she didn’t, but instead complained to her employer, who gave her sort of a runaround, and she published her account without ever naming her harasser. But it seems everybody in Atheist World knows this creep, and his modus operandi is not exactly a secret, so arch-Darwinist P.Z. Myers outs him:

Something strange happened after I posted this. People started emailing me. They all said the same thing: they knew exactly who the harasser was, and they named him, and eerily, they all named exactly the same name, and they were all 100% on the money. I’m starting to believe in psychic powers.
The accused harasser was Ben Radford.
Wait. Maybe it’s not psychic powers, it’s privileged ignorance. Almost all of the people writing to me are women, and some of them also tell tales of their husbands or boyfriends not believing them at first.

Great: “Benjamin Radford is deputy editor of Skeptical Inquirer science magazine and a Research Fellow with the non-profit educational organization the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry,” and he is also apparently “a predator who collects girls … [who] are chubby, shy, lonely, and insecure.”

Sorry about your reputation, Mr. Creepy Obsessive Stalker.

Perhaps you can tell us why people thought you and Karen Stoltznow were a “couple” and what those “sexual assaults” were about.

Have a nice day. And good luck praying to nothing.

UPDATE: I Tweeted this post to the attention of some atheists, and set of World War III. Also, I find myself accused in the comments of “blaming the victim,” whereas my point generally was that atheist guys are creeps, and no woman is safe around them. Attending an atheist conference is kind of like having a sleepover with Julian Assange, it seems, but let’s not revisit that controversy just now, eh?

UPDATE II: A feminist blog comments:

As other atheist feminists might be unable to forget, Center For Inquiry is a fairly large skeptic notprofit which came under fire after CEO Ron Lindsay made some pretty thoughtless comments during his “welcoming” address at the Women In Secularism 2 conference held in DC this past Spring. CFI still hasn’t apologized or taken action against Lindsay. Here’s to hoping they have something more to say now that we know they’ve been doling out honoraria to an individual accused of spending 4 years making an equally famous female skeptic’s life a living hell.

So, it’s all-misogyny, all-the time with these guys, and you might think this would cause some of these “atheist feminists” to reconsider their worldview, go to church and fix me a sammich.

But no. Once they go atheist feminist, they never go back . . .

Or something. Rebecca Watson denounced the Center For Inquiry this year, because those atheist men are all hateful misogynists.

This means no more sammiches for you atheist guys, either.

And next? I guess there will be Atheist Lesbian Feminists conference, which then will split into Maoist and Stalinist sects, followed by the rise of a genuinely radical Underground Atheist Feminist terrorist group, blowing up shit and issuing jargon-laden manifestos.

The progress of such tendencies always follows a historical pattern.

 

256 comments

  1. That’s the real point of joining their club. Only a few of them are honest enough to admit it, but sooner or later, one way or the other, their lives show it. Every single time. “Be sure, your sins WILL find you out.”

  2. Judaism and Christianity are two very different religions. The little Christianity shares with Judaism was loosely adapted for gentiles.

  6. Excellently put. The apostle Paul warned the doctrinal slide was in process even as he wrote his last letters to Timothy. Within 100 years of his death, various elements of paganism had influenced the surviving church so much so that Pauline doctrine was essentially denied, eradicated and forgotten. What replaced it has since become the warp and woof of much of Christendom. Sad…but again, it was foretold, and forewarned is forearmed if one has eyes to discern.

  7. Nice try, for you I guess. Once again, professing to be a Christian does not a Christian make. Christians lead by example, not insinuating to be a Christian and then performing acts directly opposable to said faith. Try again.

  10. Huh?

    The clue to why I am here lies in my first comment. I saw someone say something stupid about atheism and I corrected it. Since then I have been bombarded with unsupportable accusations that I’m ‘evangelizing’. Overreact much?

  13. You just provoked a thought.

    If one is to be consistent with whatever it is he/she professes to believe…

    …what exactly could one expect to see as the life example of a committed, convinced, consistently dead serious atheist? Not their words, but their actual deeds?

  14. Silly apologist. Don’t you know actions don’t matter? If you have FAITH in Jesus, you are a Christian by default.

  15. Go on – you know you want to start with the two different genealogies, and how both are specifically excluded from the messianic lines, and how you may have Herod the Great or you may have Cyrenius as governor of Syria, but not both.

    To say nothing of the slew of other “contradictions” and “discrepancies”. None of this means that Christianity’s reverence for the God of the Old Testament is “loosely adapted”.

    What it means is that you have read Robin Lane Fox, and didn’t understand him.

  16. “Huh?”

    That’s you in a nutshell, all right. Let me slow it down a bit for you.

    If you and I are ultimately molecules randomly floating through the universe, with no memory anywhere of who we were or what we did…if you REALLY believe that…why are you wasting your time with us? We can insult atheism all day long and it wouldn’t make one atom of difference, in the end.

    Now, a theist can (and probably should) be fired up enough to defend whatever deity he/she worships, since they believe they’ll answer to him/her/it. So that’s only to be expected.

    But who does an atheist have to answer to, ultimately? No one and nothing, because that’s all that awaits.

    Yet here you are. Indignant.

    Are you SURE your secure in your beliefs? I’m getting a whiff of defensiveness from you, which for atheists always betrays insecurity.

  19. Blimey, not another one! Perhaps you – or any of the others – could point out where exactly I have ‘evangelised’ for atheism? Exact quote please! What I have done here is not ‘evangelize’ for atheism but defend it from ignorant and potentially harmful assumptions expressed here about it. The reason I care about ignorant and potentially harmful assumptions about it is because these are, well, potentially harmful. They can have a negative impact on atheists lives. I do hope that isn’t too hard for you to grasp.

  20. Jews don’t believe in hell, or in a Trinity, or original sin, or a virgin birth, or that the messiah would be a god-man. You know very well where those concepts came from.

  22. D’err. True Christians, who are led by their faith in Jesus Christ, would be incapable of committing such acts. No one is a Christian by default, but by their actions. How patently ridiculous you are.
    Ubuhdee, ubuhdee, that’s all folks.

  23. Indeed, I do. I also know the history of how these points of doctrine arose.

    My problem is always with the inability of people unable to see past the fog of smug.

  27. No, I submit you smell the stench of an uneducated troll (yourself), who is grasping for straws. How is it that an atheist, as I suppose you are, can define the precepts of living a true Christian life? Hmmm?

  28. Exactly right.

    So…can atheism be lived *consistently* in a truly civilized, law-abiding society?

  31. Oy.

    I am soooo tired of that one being trotted out, and even more tired of people making it so blasted easy to have it trotted out.

    Look, Christians are not sinless. One would hope that a believing Christian would use his faith to guide him away from temptations, but, if he failed, that he would not then pull an Adam in the Garden. People remain fallen creatures prone to making mad excuses and justifications for themselves as ever they were before their conversion.

    Christianity is a matter of faith and practice; salvation cannot be *earned*, but it can be thrown away, at least in Catholic doctrine.

  33. “salvation cannot be *earned*, but it can be thrown away, at least in Catholic doctrine”

    And in at least 1/2 of protestant denominations too, just to be fair. But to pick one tiny nit…if you find anyone who believes salvation can be received and then lost, I’ll show you someone who believes, somewhere along the line, salvation IS merited, either in obtaining it or in maintaining it, or both. It’s a pet topic of mine, studied it for years and I’ve yet to find an exception to it. Incredibly widespread among protestants (of which, I suppose, I am one, technically).

  34. It’s common knowledge among historians that in ancient Israel it was usual for young teenage girls to get married.

  35. Hmmm. Interesting – I hadn’t really approached it from that angle; I usually end up doing the Predestination Shuffle and Shroedinger’s Cat as an analogy to keep free will in it. I understood the concept more as those who refuse the offered grace, or who, like those who begin up the narrow and rocky path and turn back, cease to believe or practice their faith.

  36. I am going to get all prissy with you: Citation. By a reputable historian. Because “common knowledge” is not a citation.

  38. I’m not sure there is one, except to accuse God of child molestation. It’s a fairly popular attack.

  39. Check it for yourself and see…doctrinal statements or just ask people, “Can a Christian lose salvation? If so, how?” If the answer is yes, then ask them the question, “What must I do to be saved?” Their answer will involve some type of work, either up front or on the back end, to get you saved or to keep you saved, or both.

    As for predestination, it’s a dead end. I’m something of an ex-Calvinist but despite my former beliefs, there is not one example in the N.T. of a lost individual being predestined by God to salvation.

    Free will IS a fact because without it, God is wholly unjust for condemning unbelievers specifically for their unbelief, as the Bible warns He’ll do in many places. To condemn you for what He predestined for you, while calling it your fault, makes both Father and Son liars.

  41. You say ‘contrast’? This implies that you think a ‘transcendent’ morality is better than a ‘man-made one’. This would be more convincing, were it not for the countless recorded cases of child abuse carried out by priests and pastors, were it not for people flying planes into skyscrapers in the name of their god, etc, etc. To cut a long story short, the notion of a ‘transcendent’ morality doesn’t seem to have all that much going for it, if people can do such heinous crimes and manage to justify it or at least be at peace with themselves about it.

    The totality of evidence suggests that all morality is ‘man-made’ but not in the sense that it is designed and can be changed on a whim. Our morality is shaped by the values and behaviours we grow up amongst.What has been considered right and wrong has changed over time, place and culture. Different religions have both supported and opposed certain ideas and behaviours, sometimes within the same religion at the same time in different peoples’ hands. Even today, people of the same religion or same non-religious philosophy can disagree over what is right and wrong.

    I hope you understand why I am not persuaded by your argument.

  42. Er…St. Augustine? St. Paul’s lament that the thing he would do, he does not; the thing he would not do, he does, and who would save him from this body of death?

    On the best day anyone ever has, is one free from sin?

    Conversion, and a change of life, might make a sexual deviant continent and chaste. It might also be a huge piece of hypocrisy, topped with self-delusion, in which the behavior continues, justified to the sinner by all sorts of stories, just as if that person never experienced a conversion. This is why conversion is merely the first part of the experience.

  43. Pagan societies around Israel sacrificed their own children by burning them to death in the red-hot hands of hollow bronze idols filled with burning wood. As a Jew you may recall being taught that.

    Do you consider societies like those, or modern ones that cut the clitori out of young girls w/o anesthesia, to be superior to Christianity when its practiced according to our Scriptures? Which society would you rather live in?

  45. Stop lying to yourself. Your morality – such as it is – is the residue of the very faith you now reject. You have no other and can produce no other. Such power does not lie within you.

  46. Don’t be lazy. What IN THE LINKED ARTICLE supports the point you were trying to make…whatever it was? We’re not going to do your work for you.

  47. Christians have committed some of the worst atrocities in history: the crusades, the inquisition, the forced conversion of unbelievers (including Jews), the massacre of indigenous peoples, the witch trials, the holocaust, etc. and they justified all of that using the Bible.

  48. Ah, Google-fu demonstrated!

    Good! You are aware that the article is a general discussion, and does not address the point of Mary, mother of Jesus’ age at marriage (which, btw, is not something we can know, or prove).

  49. Now we know you’re running out of ammo if you dredge up all that. Okay, I’m bored…

    Crusades: Catholic response to Muslim incursions. Unbiblical in any case.

    Inquisitions: Catholic response to heresy, real or perceived. Unbiblical in any case and flat a denial of Christ.

    Forced conversion: Same.

    Massacres: Same.

    Witch trials: actually STOPPED by at least one protestant pastor because it was an unbiblical denial of Christ.

    Holocaust: Committed by socialists, of which I suspect you are one (translation: Hitler had far more in common with you, ideologically, than with ANY Bible believer).

    Evil people twisting the Bible to justify any atrocity says nothing about either the Bible nor about those who don’t. What are you, a middle schooler? You don’t have the capacity for even THAT much logical thought to realize that?

    You are dismissed.

    PS The pile of skulls amassed by socialists/communists in just the last century alone far surpasses that assembled by the Roman Catholic church at it’s worst (and you forgot to mention Rome’s burning of protestants…could that be because it’s one atrocity you approve of?)

  50. Ah, this one.

    125 million people were killed last century by avowedly atheist regimes.

    If you insist that Nazi Germany was specifically Christian and justified the Holocaust from the Bible, I must tell you that cannot be done. You may insist that the fact that Hitler was initially raised as a Catholic means he was a Christian; his own avowed atheism contradicts you.

    Christianity’s history is, indeed, bloody and messy, but it’s merely that you think you know that history, and cannot make proper comparisons.

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