If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere
May 12th, 2008 at 15:37

To paraphrase Frank Sinatra:

Start spreading the news,

I’m in it today,

I am a part of it, New York, New York [Times]!

Apparently, my old nemeses as GodTube have received an investment from a London hedge fund – and as this is newsworthy, I got an e-mail from John Metcalfe at the New York Times who was writing an article about it, and he wanted to know more about what involvement with the site, given that I was one of the first people to be banned. And so in today’s business section… I’ve been quoted in the NEW YORK TIMES. Y’know, the paper from the movies! The American paper of record! Here’s what they said about me (I added the links in myself):

Mocking Christianity is definitely not allowed [on GodTube]. James O’Malley, a 20-year-old from Leicestershire, in Britain, posted a series of videos last year that jeered at evangelical theology. During a videotaped walking tour of the Natural History Museum in London, he referred to a plesiosaur fossil as a “liar-saur” and noted that volcanoes tended to erupt in non-Christian countries.

“The first couple of videos, where I spoke about Biblical infallibility and homosexuality, remained on GodTube and were treated like any other video,” Mr. O’Malley said. “It was only when I posted a third video suggesting that the earth was flat and that astronauts were part of the ‘round earth’ conspiracy that they finally cottoned on to the fact it was a hoax, and I was banned.”

So now I can say I’ve been in the New York Times. I cannot tell you how amazed I am about this.

Comments(2)

Peter Florida Backlash
August 12th, 2007 at 15:40

There’s one sure-fire way to provoke a response on the internet: arguing about religion. It turns out that Peter Florida’s trip the Natural History Museum has provoked some interesting responses. I imagine this is something to do with him, er, posting it on GodTube. Yeah, that GodTube. He’s not very original, that Peter Florida, whoever he is.

After being on GodTube about 24 hours at the time of writing, there’s been six comments. Most of them appear to be from fellow jokers like myself – which made me wonder whether there’s any real Christians on there at all. I did get this one utterly terrifying comment though, from someone who had seen in the video that Peter Florida had claimed that you only get volcanoes and earthquakes in the non-Christian world:

“I dont think that God put Volcanoes in the “non-Christian” world to destroy them. God doesnt hate people, He hates the sin they commit. China now has the fastest growing Christian Church in the world. Plus I know that there are many Christian people in Central America. Guatemala, costa Rica, El salvador, etc. More than here in the US. So if that were the case he would destroy all the US because they alloy abortion and Central America doesn’t. GOd died for the ^@!s, muslims, women and aetheists too. We just need to bring the gospel to them so they can change their ways.” (kgalicia05, 2007)

Aside from the fact that they seem to self-censor the word “gay” in the style of a comic-book, they seem to have taken Peter Florida’s other assertions just as seriously in order to not spot the sarcasm. This includes Peter claiming that a dead Tiger is breaking the second law of thermodynamics, and asserting that the moon is half way between the sun and the earth.

Peter’s also received a private message on GodTube. Yeah, I thought they’d all communicate via prayer using God as a central node and receiving messages through obscure signs (like seeing it miraculously appear burned into toast, that sort of thing), but still. It reads:

“Okay dude.. if you think science is hogwash.. When you contract some form of really really bad disease.. don’t turn to science to help you. In fact.. don’t take any medicines when you get a cold or flu, because God will help you. Don’t use your computer, use your video camera, drive your car, use electricity. You don’t seem to like science, except for when its convenient for you, and where it fits your needs.”

Christian, atheist or otherwise… they appear to have missed what I was getting at. I thought that a scruffy British student with a mouth like a gutter would give it away if the bullshit reasoning didn’t, but clearly I over-estimated the internet. Apparently this isn’t a new phenomenon either, and it is in fact well documented. It appears that I have inadvertently demonstrated Poe’s Law:

“Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of Fundamentalism that SOMEONE won’t mistake for the real thing.”

Christians, eh?

Update (23:33): It looks like I’ve been rumbled (again). After receiving a Google Blog Search hit for “GodTube”, my video has been taken down. It looks like the moderators stay proactive looking for fake videos put up there by jokers. If you go the video now it claims the video hasn’t been approved by moderators… implying it got through the pre-moderation first time around. Scary.

Comments(0)

Terrifying GodTube Video
March 16th, 2007 at 22:29

As you may know, I’ve caused quite a stir recently by posting some sarcastic videos on GodTube. One of the commentators on my blog alerted me to this video of a chap in a balaclava literally bashing a Bible, and claiming that the atheists who have been uploading videos to GodTube and blaspheming will be “put to death” and that the “whole congregation will stone the blasphemer”. I can’t help but think that this is directed, er, directly, at me.

Here’s the video using the GodTube embed code, if the video gets taken down, this won’t work:

I’ve watched it a few times and I can’t figure out if it’s fake or not. It must be fake… but it’s been up for a few days now. It must be some sort of meta-humour for all of the atheists watching. Surely? My videos were online for a few days, but this bloke is wearing a balaclava and it hasn’t been taken down. But it is fake, right?

Or should I really be expecting loads of mental Christians to stone me to death? Ooh-heck.

Comments(4)

Christ Club
March 10th, 2007 at 02:36

The first rule of Christianity is that you do not ask questions.

The second rule of Christianity is that you do not ask questions.

The third rule of Christianity is that you do not post stupid sarcastic videos on Christian websites.

So I’ve been banned from GodTube. I probably should have expected that. I guess it’s no longer a case of me rejecting Christianity, and instead Christianity dumping me. They didn’t even have the decency to say “it’s not you, it’s us… we’re just not ready for the scientific method right now” – they just stopped returning my calls. Proverbially.

If there’s any Christians reading, I know you have trouble with not taking things literally: ‘proverbially’ means that it didn’t really happen, but it’s basically the same course of events or message transposed into a different narrative to illustrate a point.

I think I’ve just re-discovered (one of) the problem(s) with religion – I think it’s the lack of accountability. It’s as powerful a force in world affairs from international relations to the individual, yet unlike the politicians, and like the multinational corporations it doesn’t have to answer to anyone if it fucks up, and doesn’t have to justify its actions to the people it is ’serving’.

Religion seems to get a free pass despite the awful things it is doing to the world because it is perceived as untouchable – some ancient book has told its readers that it should wage war on people who believe a different ancient book with equally spurious origins. The Bible, the Koran and so on are cleverly written as they are self sustaining: encouraging readers to defend the book to the death against any difficult questions or scientific reasoning that contradicts it. By wrapping itself in a veil of moral guidance it hides a mechanism of control and gives itself a veneer of legitimacy that leaders have used throughout history to push their own agendas and consolidate their own power.

I think the worst thing about religion isn’t the illusion of a deity who can intervene in peoples lives or the wasted resources of humanity on building monuments to a God who doesn’t listen, but is the breeding of ignorance.

The removal of my videos, however stupid they were, is yet another illustration that Christianity is SCARED of tackling issues that question it’s foundations. Or maybe it just says that I’m just an arrogant twat poking my nose in on a website where I don’t belong.

Either way, Christians don’t want to address the questions that are most important to them: Where did we come from? Why are we here? What is going to happen next? How is the universe organised? Why are things the way they are? Every time science offers a rational explanation to some of the biggest questions, Christianity will be on the front lines fighting against it as it doesn’t comply with assumptions they made thousands of years ago. It’s only when the church is backed into a corner that they’ll re-read the one book they’ve been reading for their entire lives and magically discover that it does in fact allow for a heliocentric universe, or whatever.

Christians just don’t want to know when they’re wrong… or even if they’re right. The systematic discouragement of asking questions is terrifying for the future: if we’re not curious about the world we live in, then what is the point in the continuation of human existence?

Comments(1)

GodTube
March 10th, 2007 at 00:03

If you’re savvy enough to be reading a blog, chances are you’ve seen the Internet’s number one newcomer this week: GodTube. It’s basically a Christian version of YouTube, featuring sickening videos like this one. Or this one. Basically I could link you to practically any video on the website and have it outrage you like it outraged me. So I’ve decided to have some fun instead.

Does anyone remember Peter Florida? Turns out that he’s a nutty Christian and has been posting video blogs to GodTube.

In this first video, “Peter” discusses the Bible. Click the link to see it on GodTube, I’ve posted the video below on Revver too, just in case they remove it.

Incredibly, it wasn’t deleted after being posted, and has now been online for around 48 hours. It must have been too realistic. So “Peter” made another video to see if that would get deleted. It discusses a controversial topic for the church: homosexuality.

These two actually got some comments from real people commending Peter’s religious beliefs, although they’ve mysteriously been deleted since. I thought it was getting a bit ridiculous – as of right now, they both still haven’t been deleted despite obviously being the work of some smart-arsed atheist blogging twat.

I…, er, Peter thought he should up the ante and really show his devotion to God by complaining about scientists:

This has now been on GodTube for a couple of hours and is being viewed by real members of the Christian Taliban. Can the limits of GodTube be pushed any further? Just how absurd can one go in the name of God before being rumbled? Tune in next week.

UPDATED 10/03 00:51. I’ve been found out and they’ve banned me. The funny thing is that because my ISP uses a proxy, presumably everyone in the county is now banned from GodTube too. Whoops.

Comments(12)