Youtube: Friend or Foe to atheists?
Offline Hey all, I haven't posted here for a while, but I wanted to share some thoughts on this.
Now as we all know, youtube is one of the greatest tools on the internet. But has it ever been a real friend for the atheist community?
Back during youtube's early days, I believe youtube atheists were either a minority or very quiet about it. Not much went into videos discussing religion too much. It was mostly people posting videos up of their friends performing stunts, or falling down. However, sometime youtube had featured a well known video "Atheists aren't bad people", a video that showed various people (namely celebrities or people of importance) who were atheists.. Which got spot light fame.
From my understanding, it was this video that made more atheists come out and made the youtube atheist community much larger. Now you have larger youtube atheists like Pat Condell, Theamazingatheist, CaptainOAwesome, etc etc. Many people at the time thought youtube either sympathized or supported Atheists. However; sometime later, another video that youtube gave a front page feature too was "Muslims aren't bad people" (or something along that line) which had a young Muslim man explaining how he wasn't the stereotype people proclaimed as Muslim, and claiming he loved America, wasn't a terrorist doesn't own a camel, etc. This begun a stream of Muslim youtube users to come out of hiding which was similar to the atheist blossom.
Overtime however, the religious debate "wars" had gone on from all sides, christian, muslim, atheist, jewish and so on. Sometimes many innocent users/videos would be flagged for no harm, such as Nick Gisburne, or videos where posting copies of a religious book. Other times they were flagged for harm, such as videos of beheading, or alleged atheists giving hate rants such as Warren25smash).
As of now, it appears youtube is trying to keep a level of tolerance to all religions as long as it doesn't go into the extreme.
So what do you guys think? Has youtube been beneficial or bad for atheists or the RRS itself? Maybe a bit of both?
Your thoughts
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I believe that reason and science always have an advantage when ideas are being openly discussed. Youtube is an open channel of discussion, so I would think that it must be beneficial for atheists as long as there isn't too much censorship.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
with Butter - a bit of both. Youtube did ban the wickedly beautiful atheist brainbox Cristina Rad for posting her big bang videos and that sucked mightily given the honesty of her content and the downright hotness of her Romanian accent. Happily the backlash was so intense she was reinstated.
In any case, I'm agreeing with Butter again. Open forums allow the dissemination of ideas and so long as there is no censorship for acceptable content then YT is a good thing.
Imagine life without folks like ZomGitsCris and NonStampCollector. The world would be a more barren place.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
One thing that bothers me is when you search "atheist" on You Tube the top listings either don't have a date listed, or are old videos, and you have to scroll down to get to more current videos. That may be a product of the popularity of a video being the priority, and not it's currency.
I don't think there is a conspiracy other than individuals flagging videos because they don't like a message.
They don't ban someone for being an atheist or saying that a god does not exist. I think media in general is good for atheists, not just YouTube, but even local TV, cable news, newspapers, magazines ect ect ect.
I think as long as atheists think long term and keep speaking out at every turn to every media outlet, we will progress long term.
Theism is on the ropes and back peddling. The can use media to sell their wears, but atheists can use that same media to counter their claims of Santa for adults. I think we are at an age where theism increasingly is being exposed as the Candyland it ism and I think all forms of media can only help us long term.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
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I don't think that it is a popularity thing because the top video I get on that search never changes. Rather, I think that there is some search algorithm that just never really changes.
That being said, if you do your search, then go to search options, there is a sort by date function. That leaves a great deal to be desired though as you tend to get a whole lot of crap videos, including every theist video that has the word atheist in the tags. Personally, I like to go with the videos which are linked in the side bar as they seem to go more on some relevant criteria of which I do not really know.
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If you look at most religious videos on youtube you usually have someone saying what a bunch of crap it is! You gotta remember FREEDOM OF SPEECH is always a plus for atheists/agnostics because for over a THOUSAND years western society was basically a theocracy where other relgions besides Christianity were either banned or severely repressed and the Popes were like Kings!!
Christianity has lost TONS of influence compared to what it had when the Mayflower got here and these 80% of churches are shrinking! The snowball is only gaining momentum as it will continue to lose influence!
Click here to find out why Christianity is the biggest fairy tale ever created!! www.nobeliefs.com/exist.htm www.JesusNEVERexisted.com
Crap, I didn't know her name was Cristina Rad. I'm in love all over again.
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.
The Christians and other religious groups eventually give up and leave any site that allows open debate and invites all opinions. They have godtube.com, but atheists can not post there and our opionions would be censored. So we've reached the point where religion can only survive with censorship. How odd for a religion that supposedly believes 'the truth will set you free'.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
Youtube is probably one of the biggest threats to religion today... There are tons of atheists and other people that do not side with mainstream religion being pretty outspoken there.
Preachers and other religious people are having a tough time dealing with facts and philosophies that do not allow them to condition their would-be subjects to their belief system. They are trying to use the internet as a tool as well, but I think it's working against them more than for them.
Knowledge frees the mind...
Nothing is true, everything is permitted...