FTB/Skepchick apostates?

[Stretchycheese]

Any other apostates here from the FTB/Skepchick crowd's True One Faith? Defections often appear similar to deconverts from the Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses. Initialy, many seem to initially sympathetic with them or perhaps completely buy into their propaganda hook, line and sinker. But later on, exposure to different perspectives or getting thrown under the bus for not being sufficiently devout or conformist enough leads to deconversion.

Names that come to mind are:
Ellen Beth Wachs
Julian (sort of, I guess)
Katie (from Canadian Atheist)
Bridgette Gaudette (was part of Secular Women)
Justin Griffiths (I think...)

Any others? Pitters perhaps?

[Skep tickle]

Does Al Stefanelli count?

There are several pitters who've talked about previously being part of the FtB crowd. Karmakin and, uh, I can't remember who else.

[another lurker]

I freely admit that I bought into their shit until they turned on me - over the most minor of infractions!

[Skep tickle]

aweraw is another - from one of his comments at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/wwjtd/2013 ... are-jerks/ from a day ago:

My own treatment at FTB in comment threads turned me, in a similar fashion to Ellen Beth Wachs (though it happend a long time before her), into an opponent of FTB. ...

[Skep tickle]

From the same WWJTD thread linked just above (bolding added):

zenspace • 9 hours ago

I'm still skimming the comments, but this is the single most concise, on target description of the real game in play I've seen yet. Well done, KacyRay.

JT - I'm not a follower of your blog and this is my first and possibly only comment on it, but pay particular attention to KacyRay's comment here. There is a deep truth in it. I say this a former FtB follower who left in disgust at their worsening behavior and tactics. Seeing them try to spread their control into the larger community with targeted smear tactics has finally motivated me to become more active in raising awareness as to the threat they actually represent to the greater atheist/skeptic community. Svan's behavior here is only the harbinger of things to come for you.

Good luck out there and watch your back.

(KacyRay posted here a couple of times, a couple of months ago)

[Dick Strawkins]

I used to be a frequent commenter at pharyngula before it became allergic to those who don't do groupthink.
I was even posting, as a neutral, on some of the sites at the sites where the schism really kicked off.
What surprised me was how quickly things broke down once the lines were drawn. It was basically a call to stand behind the Myers/Watson banner, with no questions allowed.
At a stroke they lost all the real skeptics.

[KiwiInOz]

I used to be a frequent commenter at pharyngula before it became allergic to those who don't do groupthink.
I was even posting, as a neutral, on some of the sites at the sites where the schism really kicked off.
What surprised me was how quickly things broke down once the lines were drawn. It was basically a call to stand behind the Myers/Watson banner, with no questions allowed.
At a stroke they lost all the real skeptics.

I was an avid reader of Pharyngula and occasional poster, and occasional reader of others, e.g. Ed Brayton. I took a minor flesh wound in the Great Etymology War and then decided that I preferred ERV's PTOS. I'm proud to say that I've stuck the flounce, and enlisted in the Slymepit Misogyny Brigade, Minor Humour Troop.

[Matt Cavanaugh]

I was AWOL during the A+ launch. Before that, I used to visit Pharungyla when RDF linked. I liked the pretty octopus pix, but found using the Monty Python git image when quoting opponents a bit arrogant. I tried, really tried, to like Greta C, but she is a shitty writer and has nothing new to contribute. Dick Carrier had some interesting things to say about Jesus, but I quickly realized that Dick: 1) truly was a major league Dick; 2) only rejected an historical Jesus, as himself obviously was the second coming of Christ.

At first, I was glad that anybody was writing atheist/skeptic shit, but I've become way more discerning. The FtB roster is a pack of wankers, crap amateur hack writers, and mentally deranged whack jobs. To paraphrase Alison Moyet, they're a bad stain and they need to be cleaned up.

[EdgePenguin]

I used to read Pharyngula when I was sent there by a link, but it never really grabbed me. Myer's style was always a bit too much snark and not enough substance. Had very much an air of self-congratulation about it. I didn't pay it much mind until The Event though.

[Sunder]

Hope no one will care about posting in a month-old thread for my first post but it seemed most appropriate to why I'm here.

The best thing I can say is that I wasn't at FtB for very long. I'd been aware of Pharyngula from Dawkins's books but I was never that interested in the online atheist community until recently, and I sort of wound up there indirectly via Thunderfoot -> AronRa -> Myers.

It didn't take long to notice that PZ was a bit of an ideological purist, and of the names I did know, pretty much all of them ended up on his shitlist for what in most cases seemed like minor infractions or just differences of opinion. After trying unsuccessfully to dip my toes into commenting and having PZ himself get belligerent over an extremely minor and polite disagreement on my part, I started reading up more on other peoples' experiences with him and his "horde," and my current MO is pretty much "anything PZ says is bad is probably good."

[Gumby]

Welcome, Sunder. Don't hesitate to dive into the main thread! Oh, and for what it's worth, you're the 800th member. And if you were wondering, that means nothing :P

[Matt Cavanaugh]

Welcome!

You'll find the commenting atmosphere a lot more easy-going than over at Stalag FtB.

A few tips though:
* when responding to Steersman, always block quote his entire comment;
* if you want to get Welch on your side, mention his favorite band, Heart;
*. Don't make fun of Parody Account's avatar (that's really him)
*. Beware of Gumby. Being made a mod has turned him into a martinet who bans posters for the slightest infraction;
* If you ever see a user named "Baidu" logged in, immediately notify the site admin, Lsuoma.

And don't ever make any disparaging slurs about Jen McCreight, or I'll kick you ass!
Have fun!

[jet_lagg]

Not an apostate, but I went to the Atheism Plus forums for the first time last week and was almost immediately banned for insisting something that was not rape by definition was... well... not rape by definition (I've since learned that's a sin on the A+ forums and A+ reddit, having read dozens of similar accounts).

I spent the day reading up on similar accounts and crawling through some of the threads here. It's incredibly surprising how much those opposed to A+ have been misrepresented, and how accurate the accusations against A+ members have turned out to be. As someone who doesn't attend conferences and doesn't give enough of a shit about internet drama to investigate it, this has been eye opening.

[windy]

Not an apostate, but I went to the Atheism Plus forums for the first time last week and was almost immediately banned for insisting something that was not rape by definition was... well... not rape by definition (I've since learned that's a sin on the A+ forums and A+ reddit, having read dozens of similar accounts).

I spent the day reading up on similar accounts and crawling through some of the threads here. It's incredibly surprising how much those opposed to A+ have been misrepresented, and how accurate the accusations against A+ members have turned out to be. As someone who doesn't attend conferences and doesn't give enough of a shit about internet drama to investigate it, this has been eye opening.

Welcome, jet_lagg! Hope you'll stick around.

By the way, here's some background on that virginity testing photo: IMO, by concentrating only on what's happening in the photo, A+ers and Ophelia both missed the point about the real drawbacks of the practice.
http://www.polity.org.za/article/virgin ... 2012-07-19

[Badger3k]

Matt, does that include the fact that Jen prefers fullered shoes to fluevogs?

[jet_lagg]

By the way, here's some background on that virginity testing photo: IMO, by concentrating only on what's happening in the photo, A+ers and Ophelia both missed the point about the real drawbacks of the practice.
http://www.polity.org.za/article/virgin ... 2012-07-19

Holy shit... holy shit... it's good to be amongst rationalists again (I've been getting up to speed on what A+ is like "on the ground" and spent a weekend reading their threads). Thank you for that link (neither Benson or Murdock seemed to know anything about the context of the photo).

Yes, I think I'll be sticking around a while. There seems to be such more sanity here... amongst the trolls ;)

[Matt Cavanaugh]

Not an apostate, but I went to the Atheism Plus forums for the first time last week and was almost immediately banned for insisting something that was not rape by definition was... well... not rape by definition (I've since learned that's a sin on the A+ forums and A+ reddit, having read dozens of similar accounts).

I spent the day reading up on similar accounts and crawling through some of the threads here. It's incredibly surprising how much those opposed to A+ have been misrepresented, and how accurate the accusations against A+ members have turned out to be. As someone who doesn't attend conferences and doesn't give enough of a shit about internet drama to investigate it, this has been eye opening.

Welcome, fellow dictionary-rape apologist!

[Matt Cavanaugh]

Matt, does that include the fact that Jen prefers fullered shoes to fluevogs?

I thought we'd all agreed to not make fun of our opponents' conformation physical appearances.

[Badger3k]

I must have missed it in the sooper-sekret back channel.

[Nec_V20]

What the FTB are trying to do is to turn atheism into a church - with all the parasitical baggage that entails.

There is the old saying, "Three Germans come together and they form a club, three Americans come together and they form a religion".

PZ Meyers seems to want to establish himself as an archbishop of the Church of Atheism from his diocese of Pharyngula. In essence PZ has gone from praying on his knees as a Lutheran to preying on his neighbours as an Atheist.

[helenhighwater]

i have been gone for a long time. work, life, and other stuff got in the way.

this recent doxxing by PZ is very concerning. i think lord peezus and his testiculite warrior madame twatson live in a world of atheist privilege. many atheists live in parts of the country and world where it's dangerous to be an open atheist.

yet they insist on outing them. is that no different than outting a gay person in the deep south?

[JacquesCuze]

i have been gone for a long time. work, life, and other stuff got in the way.

this recent doxxing by PZ is very concerning. i think lord peezus and his testiculite warrior madame twatson live in a world of atheist privilege. many atheists live in parts of the country and world where it's dangerous to be an open atheist.

yet they insist on outing them. is that no different than outting a gay person in the deep south?

There are many apt comparisons.

Apostasy
Outing gays
Scientology
Creationist/ID logic

[Nec_V20]

i have been gone for a long time. work, life, and other stuff got in the way.

this recent doxxing by PZ is very concerning. i think lord peezus and his testiculite warrior madame twatson live in a world of atheist privilege. many atheists live in parts of the country and world where it's dangerous to be an open atheist.

yet they insist on outing them. is that no different than outting a gay person in the deep south?

Actually gay people have become somewhat of a protected species recently.

I is still open season on atheists in the Bible Belt though.

[helenhighwater]

i have been gone for a long time. work, life, and other stuff got in the way.

this recent doxxing by PZ is very concerning. i think lord peezus and his testiculite warrior madame twatson live in a world of atheist privilege. many atheists live in parts of the country and world where it's dangerous to be an open atheist.

yet they insist on outing them. is that no different than outting a gay person in the deep south?

Actually gay people have become somewhat of a protected species recently.

I is still open season on atheists in the Bible Belt though.

and that truly does concern me. it's like the ftbullies don't understand that and are willing to put anyone to shame in order to win an argument.

how do they not know if skep tickle is in a situation like that. i'm pretty pissed about the whole situation. doxxing a woman like that just really cements PZ and RW status as feminists.

gah

[twocunts]

Another apostate here. Never commented at Pharyngula, but read it often, occasionally read other FtBlogs. Used to enjoy the mol bio posts, until they dried up. (Though even then, as someone who'd recently got a Masters in Bioinformatics, I was perplexed by PZ's ranting about the ENCODE project).

I was far too slow in realising that PZ was nowhere near being one of organised Atheism's leading lights, and in fact is a 'little man' on all possible levels. The last straw for me was his screeching about the word 'cunt' in some thread back in April. He insisted it was a misogynist slur, went all 'whataboutthemenz!' when people asked if 'dick' was also sexist, and seemed willing to declare that all Brits, Aussies and so on were misogynists rather than concede that words can have different registers in different regions of the world. A guy nymmed 'manocheese' tried to defend the word in the comments but got strung up by the usuals, particularly SallyStrange.

A little while later I remembered he was always raving about a truly vile den of inhumanity called the Slymepit. Googled it. Read a couple of blog posts on Atheism sites saying 'it's not so bad really'. Visited. After five minutes of browsing, realised I no longer had any reason to believe any statement coming from PZ ever again. So in a way, I can thank PZ for greatly boosting my critical thinking ability, after years of unwittingly letting it atrophy. Thanks PZ!

[Old_ones]

I'm an apostate. I used to read and occasionally post at Pharyngula as "Hurin" from 2009 - 2012. I don't really know why I stayed as long as I did, but I decided to take a break there around Dec. 2012 which actually led to me wandering over here about 9 mo.s later. My initial hiatus had been brought on by getting dog-piled in a thread for insisting that mental illnesses often has a behavioral component. My citing the DSM at the baboons didn't exactly have the intended effect.