This is two days old, but it was posted under someone elses account.  I don’t have much to add here, just going to post the video.

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To continue the general coverage of the Nick Gisburne – YouTube Fear of Fatwas – issue. Here below you will find a number of videos by YouTube users in support of Nick Gisburne, and in some cases expressing their fear that the YouTube Community is being disrupted by the censorship shown during the Nick Gisburne issue. For those of you with YouTube accounts who wish to file a complaint with the YouTube, you can report a Thought Crime Policy Issue With This Form.

Click more to view embedded videos…

There are many more than these four videos, I am just presenting a sample.

In this Documentary produced by HBO, Alexandra Pelosi travels around the United States taking a look into the lives and teachings of the evangelical christian culture.  The Documentary features such importaint and interesting evangelicals as Ted Haggard (speaking again very ironically about sex lives), and Jerry Falwell.

A synopsis of the documentary can be found here on HBO’s site.   Unlike the documentary makers of Jesus Camp who sought to keep themselves seperate and unquestioning of the people they were filming, Alexandra Pelosi’s style is more of an interview where she asks the pointed questions that people who question the evangelical movement would really like to ask.  You can get an idea about the style of the documentary by watching below…

Click more to view embedded Video…

Following the banning of Nick Gisburne from the YouTube community there has been a rash of re-posting of his videos by various people, and these re-postings have been met with some responses that you can watch here and comment about.

Taking this time to editorialize I have to comment first on this video…

Click More To See Embedded Video and Editorial…

Debate Not Hate

In this video the author lists a number of users who have re-posted Nick Gisburne’s video to YouTube and then asked the question “Why?” This is a fine question that I think deserves a more in depth answer than the unreasoned conjecture that the author of this video provided.

The author supposed that Nick Gisburne did it because he and other atheists hate Muslims. I do not know Nick Gisburne, but I have watched his videos in the past, and I would say that he does not hate Muslims. Instead I would say that like many Atheists, Including myself, he dislikes the faith based belief system by which they live their lives. He sees that belief system as dangerous and created videos to engage the world about the danger he saw. To quote Sam Harris: “I’m not being deliberately provocative, I’m simply worried.” Nick Gisburne was using YouTube for that which it should be used, to engage others, to worry aloud as he saw necessary.

The author of this video then goes on to say that Atheists are attempting to brain wash people on YouTube into thinking the way that they do, in the same manner that Christians and Muslims brainwash people into thinking the way that they do. Then the author goes on to ask for “more debate and less hate.” This easy to recite politically correct tag line, more debate and less hate, has always made me upset.

I know that there is a way to interpret that phrase so that it makes sense, but in this case it is being interpreted in a contradictory manner. In a sense the author of this video is saying that it is a good thing that Nick Gisburne is gone because he was a “hater”, but then they offer that tag phrase completely forgetting that a debate requires two sides, and ignoring that Nick Gisburne was attempting to engage in debate in the first place.

This next video responds to Nick Gisburne by saying that he has quoted the Koran out of context. It shows an example that I simply find amusing so here it is for you to watch.

BANNED FROM YOUTUBE-Re:Islamic Teachings Found in the Qur’an

It could be true that he was taking quotes out of context, but this response is irrelevant now because it is attempting to debate where no debate is possible. I am sure Nick Gisburne would have responded to this video, but rather than allowing people to engage in debate over issues, YouTube and Google have decided to play the interfering parents. What this interference has allowed to happen is, instead of allowing for a debate over the issue where two sides have equal chance to state their cases, to respond to one another; instead, it has allowed the people who disagree with Nick Gisburne to burn him down in his absence and amplify their messages without having to actually engage in debate.

Debate does not mean the other side has to say things that make you feel good. Debate means they will say things that make you angry, but that you will also be able to respond to them. Currently what is going on at YouTube is not debate, it is instead the same old story that the western world has been telling itself for the last five hundred years. Namely, that religion is beyond debate, unquestionable, and that those who question it should be censored.

There is no right to not be offended by what others say, it is true that in the YouTube terms of service there is such a rule that says you cannot offend others, but we must realize that that environment is not a Free Speech environment, and is therefore not an environment for debate.

Atheists desire debate, we desire debate because we have reason and logic on our side.

~EJTower. Jan 2007.

So because Atheism News now has a slightly better Google factor about Nick Gisburne than his own site does, I thought it would be best for everyone to check out his site where you can find a number of his videos, and his thoughts on the whole YouTube problem.

If you have a YouTube account and want to go crazy uploading Nick’s videos he provides a number of different formats of his videos for you to download to your computer and upload to YouTube fairly quickly.

http://www.gisburne.com/

Show your support for Nick in any way that seems appropriate to you.

The following video has created a major uproar on the internet in the last twenty-four hours as Atheist Nick Gisburne was banned for creating it. In responce many youtube folks have gone nuts copying and re-publishing the video all over the internet. The video itself is a fast paced nine minute listing of every instance of Cruelty in the Koran. Over at Digg Nation this story has been getting a great deal of attention, they are talking about a revolution to bring him back. Click Here To Join The Digg Avalanch. I will do my best to continue to have an embeded version of this video for as long as I can.

There is at this time a major question about if he was banned because of his views, or because of the use of copyrighted content. If it was the copyrighted material, the question then becomes why did they single him out, and not the ten thousand other people who also are using copyrighted material?

Click more to view embeded video…

For those Atheists in the Austin, Texas area who are not aware of the public access show that they have on their television, please do check it out. A live call in show that feilds questions from the public on behalf of the Atheist Community of Austin, a non-profit secular foundation. The show is fun from the atheist perspective, interesting, and worth the lengthy hour and half it takes to watch it. If you are not in the Austin area you can also watch the show by searching on Google Video, where much of their archives are waiting for you to watch. Click Here To Save Time.

Below I have included an embeded episode for you to preview the work, and while it isn’t BBC quality, you can say that at least its Atheists on TV.

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For those of you who have not yet heard of this documentary produced by A&E Indie films, it is high time you check it out.  Now released to DVD the documentary is a shocking look at the inside of the Devils Lake Bible Camp run by Becky Fischer.  This film includes the ironic footage of Ted Haggard saying “I know what you did last night, give me a thousand dollars and I won’t tell your wife.”

The film also raises such questions as those that Richard Dawkins has asked.  Is religious indoctrination child abuse?  I suggest you watch the film and ask yourself.

Click more to see embeded video…

In this video, Richard Dawkins is interviewed by the Rational Response Squad while on his book tour for “The God Delusion.”  They discuss how scientists and atheists should and should not engage theists in discussions about god, evolution, and irrational theist ideas.  Again the idea that religion should be subject to criticism as political, economic, or artistic views are subject to criticism.

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Dear Readers,

When I started this blog a few weeks ago I did not realize that many of you would be quite so interested in reading it.  Though that is the nature of the new media world that we live in; what I think matters very little, your showing up tells me that I am doing something right.

The goal of this blog is to help you sort through the thousands of atheism related sites that are out there by pointing you towards ones that are worth your time.  We are currently doing this by looking through the massive video archives found on google, youtube, and other places to find you worthy videos to view.  We are also reviewing websites that we think are worth while, though we do those much less frequently because we have day jobs.

So here is what I would like to know as editor here…

Do you like the site?
What other types of things would you like to see here?
Do you have any comments?

This is your chance to influence the content here.

~EJTower, Executive Editor of Atheism News