Pat Condell: Pretentious Elitist or Righteous Activist?

[It's Damn Real!]

If you don't know who Pat Condell is, I suggest you do a little research on him, or at the very least, watch a few of his videos below before offering a response here, as you'd look pretty stupid answering questions about a man you know nothing about otherwise.

For the lazy among us, I'll save you the calories in having to type/click any more than you'd like (you can just scroll, instead, which I'm pretty sure burns less calories than typing) by providing you some background information on just who Pat Condell is:

Patrick Condell (born November 23, 1949) is a British writer and internet personality. He performed alternative comedy shows during the 1980s and 1990s in the United Kingdom, and won a Time Out Comedy Award in 1991. He was also a regular panellist on BBC Radio 1's "Loose Talk".

From early 2007, he began posting short monologues denouncing religion to a number of video sharing websites. His videos have been featured on many websites, including YouTube and LiveLeak. They have also been published to DVD, and also as a book of video transcripts. As of December 2010, Pat Condell's YouTube channel has over 140,000 subscribers and 29 million views.

--more.

Just a few additional notes:

• He is a member of the National Secular Society, who have gone to bat for him numerous times when his content has been removed from popular websites, most notably YouTube.com

• He has been praised by Richard Dawkins, a British ethologist and evolutionary biologist and author of the controversial (but incredibly popular) The God Delusion, published in 2006.

• In 2008 Richard Dawkins' website released an "anthology" DVD, selling a collection of his monologues through the site as well as on Amazon.com.

• In 2010 he released his book Godless and Free, which was published by lulu.com.​

Some of Pat's most popular videos:

What Have I Got Against Religion?

Spoiler

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What Does Faith Deserve Respect?

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American Islamophobia

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[YOUTUBE]6Ff3Qg6B_WY[/YOUTUBE]

Your Faith is a Joke

Spoiler

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What Do I Believe?

Spoiler

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Now, obviously Condell has received his fair share (and then some) of criticism, especially from the religious right and Islamic fundamentalists looking to silence him — going so far as to send him numerous death threats as he reported in an interview with a Dutch Newspaper in 2007.

That said, what's your take on him? Do you consider what he's doing right or wrong? Does it come off as moral superiority or perhaps as righteous religious skepticism and criticism? Pompous ass or articulate "pulpit"?

Secondarily, does he deserve a seat at the "round table" of sorts of the so-called "Four Horsemen" of Atheism (Richard Dawkins, Daniel C. Dennet, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens)?

Please give well thought out and well-written replies and do not SPAM this thread with rhetoric, scripture, death threats, or any other juvenile type of response to something you obvious have no business objectively discussing if that's the only input you care to share. Thanks.

 

[Xemmy]

I am personally a big fan of Pat Condell. Himself, The Amazing Atheist, ZOMGitsCriss, and Thunderf00t are the cornerstones of Atheism on Youtube, sort of becoming D-List celebrities.

I absolutely think what Pat is doing is a good thing. Some of his criticism is overly harsh, and he does little to seperate extremists from casual worshipers. Paticularly with Islam. His opinion on the 9/11 "mosque" was quite terrible. He does come off as pompous ass, but that's one of the things I love about him.


A seat at the roundtable? I'd rather him not be. Not to say he doesn't deserve the honor, but the four horsemen have a decent social image. The appear intelligent, and they've written best selling books. The reason they're the big 4 is because they bring something unique to the table. Patt Condell is really too similar to Christopher Hitchens. He's the blunt, asshole of the group. That being said, Chris is likely to die soon. So why not? XD