One Mans Blog
Specialization is for Insects.
Posted on Feb 09, 2007 - 7:17pm by John P. in Google Tools, Philosophy, Videos
Religion is one of those topics I normally don’t want to touch with a 10 foot pole. I’ve found that no one ever agrees when it comes to this topic. Heck, I’ve seen Christians arguing with one another over the meaning of a particular passage of scripture, so you know no good can come of a debate with an Atheist.
Having said that, I was very disturbed to learn that some YouTube staffer decided to ban a member on religious grounds. Nick Gisburne, an outspoken member of the YouTube community recently posted a video comprised solely of a slide show of quotes taken from the Qur’an. All of the quotes deal with the negative aspects of being a non-believer - such as going to hell, being killed and burning for eternity.
Clearly this video illustrates just one side of the discussion, and I would imagine an appropriate Islamic response would have been a video depicting passages of love and peace from the same book. But no one had the chance to issue such a response.
Nick has asked that people help him with an appeal to YouTube for the reinstatement of his account, and it seems to me that all people who value freedom of speech - regardless of religious vantage point - should speak up now, or possibly forever hold your peace…
As a result I have sent the following message to customer support:
Sirs,
I believe it is highly inappropriate for YouTube to ban Nick Gisburne for posting religious content. (See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRPVsamLaKk)
As a division of Google I would expect you to uphold the companies mission: “Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”
After the removal of his account I downloaded and viewed the video in question from Nick’s Web site (http://nick.gisburne.com/). Nick has provided an insightful view of passages from the Qur’an, which I am certain many Muslims could have taken the time to explain for the better understanding of all. The removal of this, as well as his other posts, has now left me without access to a view that I am sure Nick shares with many others.
Since YouTube has decided to begin applying wholesale censorship, I am fearful that YouTube will continue to remove honest religious viewpoints, be they from atheists, Christians, Muslims, or any of the other beliefs.
I would ask that you immediately reinstate Nick’s user accounts as well as the video content contained therein. Religion and its various viewpoints are very much a part of the human experience and, unless dangerous or excessively offensive, YouTube should not filter content in this manner.
Thank you for your attention to this matter,
John
Here is Nick’s short video post about this experience and how it has made him feel:
EDIT: Nick’s account and video was deleted again, so here is his new commentary. If you notice that it’s been removed again just drop a comment below and I’ll go find it again.
And here is the video which sparked the whole issue, hopefully it won’t get banned again:
It’s quite interesting because Nick was not a “prominent” figure on YouTube, and now this incident may very well thrust him into the spotlight and result in far more people seeing his video than ever would have had he been left alone. As an example… well, just look at this post.
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“Clearly this video illustrates just one side of the discussion…”
How so? If Islam claims to be a peaceful religion, then advocacy or celebration of violence in the text in considers the revealed word of god disproves their basic premise. A sincerely peaceful religion does not promote violence at its core nor revel in the damnation, subjugation, etc. of non-believers, period. The Bible and associated religions fail in this regard as well, even more so.
See Quakers and Buddhists for two genuine examples of peaceful religions. While believers in any faith will act violent at times, the question is what doctrine does the faith teach. All the “passages of love and peace from the same book” in no way mitigate the objectionable ones. Loving three people isn’t a defence for killing a fourth now is it?
All good points Victoria. I had to really think about my answer here…
The assumption under which I was operating with my original commentary was that this video was focusing solely on the passages related to killing and death; however, I assume (having never read it) that the book also deals with love and forgiveness, etc.
Now that assumption was based upon drawing an analogy to Christianity, which is what I’m familiar with having been raised as a Methodist. The Bible certainly has it’s share of morbidity (wars, pestilence, cutting baby’s in half :-)) but it also talks about God’s love and desire for people to be good to one another.
I suppose your point is very valid that neither Christianity nor Islam would be examples of peaceful religions compared to Quaker and Buddhists.
So, thanks for pointing that out and giving me something really interesting to consider.
John
Thank you for posting this — I hadn’t heard. Both of the videos have been removed now, unfortunately.
Hrafn,
Thanks for pointing that out. I just updated the links so they videos should work for now. At least till they get banned again.
I must say, it really is fairly rediculous because I wouldn’t consider either of these to be particularly offensive.
Heck, the stuff on Jerry Springer is a lot worse than this.
John
[...] February 12th, 2007 Edit An atheist posted a video that was chock full of quotes from the Qu’ran with topics such as damnation for non-believers, doom, fire, and also many verses supporting war in the name of Allah and even support for killing non-believers. (story with videos) [...]
this Just another example of the fundamentalist right.
Thank you for the post!!! Anything that infringes on freedom of speech is just horrible there also trying to change the history of Islam especially in the school systems i encourage you all to get or rent if you can this movie http://www.obsessionthemovie.com/
it’s about radical Islam’s war against the west also here’s another good resource to know what’s going on too!! http://frontline.org.za/books_videos/sti.htm it’s about Islam. Slavery, Terrorism & Islam sets the record straight with chapters on “Muhammad, the Caliphas and Jihad”, “The Oppression of Women in Islam”, “The Sources of Islam” and “The Scourge of Slavery the Rest of the Story”.
Thanks again for posting this it’s making me rise up to get this truth out there!!! Wake up Americans and stop being willingly ignorant!!!
GZ