Thomas Sheedy: This is my issue. I don't want to normalize the idea that being an atheist is a bad thing. Oh, because we're in a new culture war, because, oh, atheism was so 2012, or it was so 2015. And now we're talking about these issues, so let's not really call ourselves atheists anymore, because it's not cool to call yourself an atheist anymore.
Think about this, though. Atheism is still growing. The nones are still a thing, even though it might sound so 2013, that statistic from 2013 hasn't changed.
And there are people literally being killed around the world simply because they don't believe in an invisible magic man in the sky. Because they don't believe in a god. That's crazy. That's a violation of human rights.
And more and more institutions, organizations, and individuals need to do something about this. And you're right, we do need to set that example here at home.
Q: Yeah, and to that point, I saw on your website, just looking over it again yesterday, you were talking about, you know, like these blue laws that are still in place, or blasphemy laws that are still on the books, even in the United States, even though, of course, they're not enforced, but the fact that they're even on the books.
Sheedy: So stupid.
Q: That's just, to me, that's embarrassing.
Sheedy: And that's why secular activism, even in government, even in state legislatures, is still a necessary thing.
Yes, we need to oppose blasphemy laws happening in other parts of the world, in the old world, but there is still lots of stuff, even if it looks so 1.0, that does need to happen here.
And we are an organization that's trying to do that. We're trying to build the infrastructure and build the resources to make these programs, that we can engage in to defend people's right to not believe, necessary and proper.
You are a proud atheist in the emerging New Atheist movement attending one of the most impactful and energized conferences in your community
By: Thomas Sheedy
Published: Jun 3, 2021
You are a proud atheist in the emerging New Atheist movement attending one of the most impactful and energized conferences in your community. In June of 2011, you are in Dublin, Ireland, attending the World Atheist Convention, an event celebrating atheism, science advocacy, and secularism with some of the most famous freethinkers of the time. You enjoy the attendees and speakers so much that you stay up in conversation at the hotel bar until four in the morning. You see an attractive speaker retiring for the night, and you follow them to an elevator to ask them if they would like to join you for a cup of coffee. The speaker declines. You then go to your hotel room, alone. Afterward, the speaker that you were attracted to goes online to decry what you did. The speaker, and other extremists, denounce the New Atheist movement, a healthy and growing movement, as sexist. What you did becomes a catalyst for extremists to infiltrate and destroy the New Atheist movement.
This is not a hypothetical scenario; this happened. Starting in the early 2010s, extremist infiltrators painted the New Atheist movement as sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, and “islamophobic.” Much of the success of these infiltrators was fueled by feminist Rebecca Watson declining a polite request for “coffee” in an elevator. Now, ten years after “Elevatorgate,” the New Atheist movement has lost influence and has become a ghost of its former self.
A few weeks after the incident, Watson uploaded a video on YouTube describing what happened, stating:
“… All of you except for the one man who didn’t grasp, I think, what I was saying on the panel, because, at the bar later that night — actually at four in the morning, we were at the hotel bar, four a.m. I said, I’ve had enough guys, I’m exhausted, going to bed, so I walked to the elevator, and a man got on the elevator with me and said, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I find you very interesting, and I would like to talk more, would you like to come to my hotel room for coffee?” Um, just a word to the wise here, guys, don’t do that. I don’t really know how else to explain that this makes me incredibly uncomfortable, but I’ll lay it out that I was a single woman, you know, in a foreign country, at four a.m., in a hotel elevator with you, just you. I, don’t invite me back to your hotel room right after I’ve finished talking about how it creeps me out and makes me uncomfortable when men sexualize me in that manner.”
The idea that the New Atheist movement was systemically sexist is a blatant lie. No one denies that individual acts of sexual harassment occurred in the atheist community. Regarding Elevatorgate, it is wrong for someone to continue to express sexual interest in you after you have made it clear that you are not sexually interested in them. However, the person interested in Watson immediately accepted her denial, did not continue to express interest in her, and proceeded to his hotel room alone. Sexism was not at fault; instead, at most, maybe he misunderstood what she said. Claims like the ones these infiltrators have made over the years only hinder our community, a community that so many of us fought to develop. If anything, these infiltrators downplayed the problems of real systemic sexism that still exists in other parts of the world, as explained by Richard Dawkins in a sarcastic response to Watson, in what became known as the “Dear Muslima letter:.’’
Dear Muslima
Stop whining, will you? Yes, yes, I know you had your genitals mutilated with a razor blade, and . . . yawn . . . don’t tell me yet again, I know you aren’t allowed to drive a car, and you can’t leave the house without a male relative. Your husband is allowed to beat you, and you’ll be stoned to death if you commit adultery. But stop whining, will you. Think of the suffering your poor American sisters have to put up with.
Only this week I heard of one; she calls herself Skep” chick,” and do you know what happened to her? A man in a hotel elevator invited her back to his room for coffee. I am not exaggerating. He really did. He invited her back to his room for coffee. Of course, she said no, and of course, he didn’t lay a finger on her, but even so . . .
And you, Muslima, think you have misogyny to complain about! For goodness sake, grow up, or at least grow a thicker skin.
Richard
To Richard’s point, he’s right! To add to his remarks, atheist circles downplayed the injustices of the Islamic world. Many of the extremist infiltrators have silenced or critiqued criticism of Islam by non-woke atheists. Those extremist infiltrators, those who called themselves atheists and secularists, defended religion in the name of their new religion: Critical Social Justice. I know this because I have seen it myself. The topic of Islam was not the only topic affected by the extremist infiltrators. After their success in taking over the movement five years later, several groups of atheists, the majority of the movement’s supporters, men and women alike, were seen as pariahs at atheist conferences.
Bill Maher type Liberals
Secular Libertarians and Conservatives
Ex Muslims
Those accused of harassment without evidence
Anyone who questioned the Atheism+ narrative (criticism was constantly conflated with harassment and ‘cyberstalking’)
Women who disagreed with radical feminists (they were charged with ‘parroting misogynistic thought’ and ‘internalized misogyny’)
In a short span of five years, from 2011 to 2016, movement employees, executives, and board members allowed extremists into their organizations to guide them to see the “sexism” that they did not know existed in their organizations. In 2012, extremist infiltrators pressured several atheist movement leaders to condemn the many ordinary atheists who didn’t believe in the false narrative of systemic sexism in the movement, disguised as “Hate Directed at Women.” People like Watson and other infiltrators wore special goggles to see alleged hatred that normal people could not notice. The atheist movement paid the price in 2016 at the second Reason Rally, where instead of 30,000 atheists in the rain like the first Rally four years prior, we likely had only between five hundred to almost a few thousand, all because of weakness; wokeness in the atheist movement that began with Elevatorgate.
Unlike other organizations who tolerated such infiltration and subversion of the movement, Atheists for Liberty will not make the same mistake. It is because of the weakening of the movement that Atheists for Liberty exist in the first place!
Over the past eight years, I have seen:
Millions of dollars once belonging to world-renowned atheist organizations were lost.
Conferences, some once having numbers in the hundreds, if not thousands, dead.
Some of the most horrific and superstitious belief systems defended in the name of wokeness
Organizers of events facing real harassment because they dared to have “politically incorrect” speakers, speakers who were seen as ordinary, non-sexist, New Atheist types just a few years prior
The movement’s professionalism fade away in the name of this infiltration
Ex Muslims disregarded by movement organizers in the United States
A friend’s life, once respected as a bold, national figure in the movement, is destroyed by false allegations lobbed against him. He nearly committed suicide.
And as of 2021, I am only 23…
Ten years ago, we allowed an ideology to consume a movement that could have changed the world.
Elevatorgate was one of the Borg-like origin points of modern wokeness. It is only together that we can rebuild what was lost and ensure that silly events like this one never hinder atheist activism again. This is what I am going to dedicate my life to.
==
Sheedy is being exceedingly generous here where I will not. Let's be completely clear: we have literally no reason to think that Rebecca Watson's purported incident even actually happened. None. She provided no evidence, someone attempted to determine if elevator CCTV footage existed or could be accessed to corroborate the story but was bullied for not unquestioningly believing the claim. Watson herself lamely and conveniently claimed to be suffering prosopagnosia (face blindness), and both her and her acolytes called anyone who was, ahem, skeptical, about the claim in the absence of any evidence every istaphobe name under the sun. Eerily the same as bible-thumping preachers commanding you to believe or be condemned to eternal hellfire.
Which is suspicious for people purporting to be skeptics, particularly Watson who styled herself as the "Skepchick." Jussie Smollett's case had fewer holes.
It's the irreligious equivalent of First Corinthians:
1 Corinthians 15:6
After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep.
This was the day Rebecca Watson, single-handedly lead the intersectional collapse of New Atheism and ushered in the first woke ideological takeover. Whether it was deliberate and calculated or accidental through her own stupidity and hubris is, by this point, irrelevant.
