Freethought Blogs Loses a Hero

BY R ICH AR D CAR R IER / ON APRIL 1, 2012 / 13 COMMENTS

Iran has done the unthinkable. It bought off an atheist leader with sex. As announced on his blog today, Al Stefanelli,
Georgia State Director for American Atheists, and fellow blogger here at FtB (A Voice of Reason), is leaving us. Because
the Iranian parliament negotiated a deal to supply him with 29 Persian hookers. They had originally offered 72 virgins,
but in our private backchannel, when I asked him why it ended up 29 hookers, Al told me (and I’m not making this up):

“
I did the math and realized, in my state of health, I could only handle 29, tops. And I didn’t want virgins.
Yeah, the Iranian negotiators had a hard time understanding this, and I tried explaining to them. They
thought for a while it must be a translation thing. But no, I wanted really sexually experienced women,
not women who don’t know what they’re doing. And I didn’t want sex slaves, either. I wanted women
working a fair trade contract for services that they freely negotiated. I mean, I’m only abandoning my
activism for atheism, not feminism. They couldn’t understand why a man wouldn’t want virgins. They
kept going on about it. In the end, I think they thought they were getting a great deal by letting me take a
bunch of dirty sinners off their hands. But they still insisted on keeping the “swollen breasts” thing in the
contract. Yeah, that was part of their original offer. They were weirdly persistent about it.

Apparently, the Iranian parliament has concocted a plan to buy off all the atheist leaders they can by offering them
paradise, or “Janah,” as defined in the Koran. Supposedly the way would then be clear for Islam to convert the world.
(Although when Al asked them how they planned to buy off women atheist leaders, they seemed confused by the idea.)

There were various parts to the deal they concluded with Al, including a garden, a bunch of ironwork, lifetime access to
a free messenger service, a thousand bottles of non-alcoholic wine, free medical care, three fancy robes, some jewelry and
perfume, a personal chef, a couch inlaid with gold and gems, a top-of-the-line refrigerator, a scented fountain, a packet of
ginger root, a white horse and an albino camel, and a small tree. The key provision, though, was the offer of 72 virgins
“with swollen breasts” (literally, it’s in the contract; I couldn’t believe it, so I had an Arabic specialist check it, after Al sent
me a fax of the signed contract, because none of us here at FtB believed this was for real).

But the deal is done. Beginning May 1, Al has agreed to never represent or speak about atheism again. He will return to
journalism, focusing on fluff pieces about lost kittens, and tending his garden. And, apparently, his 29 fair-labor sex
workers.

How could this have happened? And who will be next? With such a tempting offer, and an unlimited secret slush fund (now
held by the untouchable Nicaraguan drug cartels in alliance with the Iranian Secret Police, a fund established for Iranthree
decades ago by Oliver North at the behest of Ronald Reagan), we could be losing a lot of atheist heroes in the coming
months. This may be a dark year for organized atheism.

Saddened, I looked into this, and discovered how this came about. It all started when one of the members of the Iranian
parliament met a girl at a party. She told him she had abandoned Islam because “Al Stefanelli’s blog” told her to, and that
he had corrupted her with the dark teachings of Western philosophy, making her cling to such immoral things as walking
quickly in public and wearing stockings. After a half an hour of being sick over the toilet at the news of this, the
parliamentarian called an emergency meeting of something called (the translation from the Arabic is a bit rough) the Ronald
Reagan Committee for Aiming the Stinger Missiles He Sold Us and Converting the World to the Beautiful Teachings of the
Holy Prophet Peace Be Upon Him. They concocted the plan then and there. The rest is history.

I asked Al how his dear wife of 21 years could possibly have agreed to this, and he says she was actually kind of jazzed
about the idea, since with 29 women to hang out with she’d have more fun and a lot less work to do. And she really wants
to ride the albino camel. No, Al assured me that is not a euphemism for something. She has always loved camels, and
albino ones are apparently the best. But he really only swung it by arranging an adjunct deal to hire Hugh Jackman as her
paramour for three months each year for the next nineteen years so their gains would be equal, which Al worked out by
trading Hugh five hundred bottles of the non-alcoholic wine. I thought that seemed inequitable, but I asked my wife about it,
and she said, “29 buxom Persian hookers for 1 Hugh Jackman? Yep. That’s about right.”

Anyway, if you don’t believe me, just read Al’s own blog post today (I’m Outa Here, Bitches!), where he spells out the
whole sordid deal.

He will be missed.

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13 comments
N EWF IE • APRIL 1, 2012, 6 :48 AM

Other than Iranian officials using Arabic, the rest is totally believable.

R E P LY

RICH ARD CARRIER • APRIL 1, 2012, 10:54 AM

Ah, but in Muslim heaven, everyone speaks Arabic!

R E P LY

JON • AP R IL 1 , 201 2, 7:55 AM

Hahah! But posted in the humor section? Too easy!

R E P LY

CAF EEIN E • APRIL 1, 2012, 8:39 AM

Hah! the best one I’ve read yet!

R E P LY

S TEVEN BOLLIN GER • AP R IL 1 , 201 2, 8:40 AM

I ripped off your idea: http://thewrongmonkey.blogspot.com/2012/04/richard-carrier-has-become-hare-

krishna.html

R E P LY

GOR DON WILLIS • APRIL 1, 2012, 3:37 PM

Hilarious! Uncloaking to reveal that I am an avid reader of your books and posts, can I say, thank you very
much.

R E P LY

EDWIN • APRIL 1, 2012, 6 :23 PM

You’d be an April Fool to pass up 29 Persian doxies. But are they as hot when the burkas come off?

R E P LY

J. GOA R D • APRIL 1, 2012, 10:44 PM

FAIL.

The satisfying part is imagining all the people getting roped in by a story that starts plausible and slowly builds to
absurd. You shot your load in the first paragraph, dude. :-/

Take a look at Greta’s — it’s pitch-perfect.

R E P LY

RICH ARD CARRIER • APRIL 2, 2012, 9 :10 AM

I like being funny, not convincing. It’s just my thing. I want people to laugh. And get all the
little jokes in the process.

R E P LY

LOU D OEN C H • AP R IL 2, 201 2, 7:09 AM

Now that the day is passed, I have to ask how you guys decided to parcel out the goodbyes. Draw lots?

R E P LY

RICH ARD CARRIER • APRIL 2, 2012, 9 :09 AM

It was a strange and complicated process, full of wonder and marvels the human mind cannot
but conceive.

R E P LY
 STEVOR • AP R IL 3, 2012, 5:03 AM

So names out of a hat then?

R E P LY

RICH ARD CARRIER • APRIL 4, 2012, 9 :40 AM

Oh no. Like I said. Way more complicated.

R E P LY

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Richard Carrier is the author of many books and numerous articles online and in print. His avid readers span the world from Hong Kong to
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