Author: James R.

So, as a follow-up to yesterday’s post:

One, Andrew Torrez put up an apology, which he started by saying the details in the article were wrong and he could prove it, and that’s… certainly one way of beginning an avowed apology for wrongdoing, but anyway, having said that he then went on to also say the accusations were basically true, and that he did that sort of thing when he was dissatisfied with his marriage. Hell of a thing to admit in a Facebook group your wife’s a member of, but whatever. He’s basically been booted from all PIAT groups and duties.

Two, Noah from PIAT addressed their silence on the subject. He claimed to have known since November ’22 when he was first approached with the news that complaints had been made against Andrew, but had been instructed to keep schtum about it (except with Heath and Eli, the other two main hosts) and not do anything about it until all relevant legal stuff was done. Once he knew the story was about to go public, he felt he was no longer under any compunction to not take action, so action was accordingly belatedly taken. He thinks they did the only viable thing that could’ve been done, but he regrets having lost people’s trust as a result.

And I think he’s actually being perfectly sincere, particularly on that last point, cos I think people do have perhaps higher expectations of him given his particular place in the atheist community. It was a pretty good explanation of where he stood in the whole thing and I see no real reason to doubt it. Unfortunately, it contained absolutely no reference to reports that they knew of stories about Andrew’s misbehaviour since 2017. Accordingly, a lot of people (comme moi) are still… unsatisfied at best, and I think with some good reason too. I know there’s legal issues involved, but the longer they hold off answering questions, the unhappier people are going to be with them…

Oh dear.

I don’t know anything about Mandisa Thomas so can’t comment on that. I know P. Andrew, though, cos of his connection to my favourite podcast. And as they say in the classics, son, I am disappoint. I’ve wanted to talk about God Awful Movies on here before now, and, well, this isn’t exactly how I thought I would start doing so…

I discovered God Awful Movies via Youtube in 2016, this being when I finally got adequate unlimited broadband here so could actually put YT to good use at last. And around that time I found myself watching quite a lot of atheist content for some reason, such as Steve Shives’ “An Atheist Reads” series when he was still doing that, and Rachel Oates when she was starting out doing similar stuff… and somehow I latched onto an interview Seth Andrews did with these three guys who’d started a podcast called God Awful Movies skewering Christian cinema.

Perfect. I’d discovered the wacky world of the Christian film industry thanks to Mu-Meson Archives, now here was a whole show devoted to tearing strips off it. Bad movies and bad religion. This couldn’t have been better for me. And at that time YT’s suggested videos handily linked to an episode of the show, which I recall being Rock: It’s Your Decision, so I listened to that and knew I was onto a good thing. Been a listener ever since.

The podcast was spun off from an occasional segment of The Scathing Atheist, Noah’s main show which still continues and just celebrated its tenth birthday; GAM has since grown into a mini-empire of its own with a cast of semi-regular recurring guests, including Andrew Torrez, their legal representative (cos after they turned themselves into a proper company, Puzzle in a Thunderstorm, they needed one of those). Andrew was a pretty good cohost, he was always good at losing his shit on those episodes where the filmmakers depicted dubious legal situations, and his knowledge of how those things would (or wouldn’t) work in the real world made those episodes even better.

And the best thing was, PIAT produced a pretty good little fan community on Facebook. Cos it has to be said, the atheist movement has left a fair bit to be desired on the personal level, an unfortunate number of the bigger players in it have turned out to be a bit shit; and, frankly, God’s anti-fandom is a large part of why I don’t identify myself as being part of it. (Not unlike Doctor Who fandom in some ways.) But the unofficial PIAT group on Facebook was and still is great. By and large the people there are cool and reasonable and it’s generally fun to hang around.

Consequently, when scrolling through Facebook this afternoon and the first post I see from the PIAT group was them noting that they were severing ties with Andrew Torrez… yeah, that came as a bit out of nowhere.

Unfortunately, the situation itself hasn’t, by the look of things. If you look at the article linked way back at the start of this post, it turns out Andrew has actually had accusations of sexual harrassment levelled against him since 2017. And, somewhat more troubling, it now looks like the PIAT gang have known about them for a similar amount of time. Which, if that’s the case, also means they’ve done nothing about it for that amount of time too. Apparently they’ve also only just discovered that the story was going public, hence why they’ve done this much now… but still.

And I’m… kind of pissed. I have sunk a fair amount of money into GAM and Scathing over the years, five dollars per week between them, which works out at over $250 per year. Can’t remember when I started paying for Scathing, but I signed on with GAM in 2016. I’ve helped keep them going for a long time now, and I’ve been happy to do so if it meant them flourishing and able to keep making content, and now… I don’t know. I’ve raised an eyebrow, to be sure, at some of their sponsors, some of whom have proven questionable like Robinhood or BetterHelp, the latter of whom they’re still with despite people raising issues about them with the PIAT gang, but I’ve overlooked them. Maybe I shouldn’t have.

The situation is complicated by the fact that there’s been no other official statement up to the time of writing. This is something a bunch of people in the Facebook group are pissed about, though I can understand the difficulty the PIAT mob are facing, in that they probably shouldn’t say anything about the problem person without legal advice, but their legal advisor is the problem person. I don’t suppose that finding someone to immediately replace Andrew is an easy prospect, and I don’t discount the nightmare that this must be for Noah Heath and Eli. But, to paraphrase an old Liberal Party election campaign, there are questions that have to be answered, and the longer they hold off answering them, the more people are going to be pissed.

And the answers are going to have to be really good when they come.