Godless And Free

by Pat Condell

  Title page

  Copyright

  Copyright © Pat Condell 2011

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any other information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the author.

  First published in 2010 by www.lulu.com

  This Kindle edition published in 2011 by Pat Condell

  ISBN: 978-0-9568116-0-8

  www.patcondell.net

  Introduction

  A number of people have asked for this book, so here it is. It contains the transcripts of sixty video monologues I posted on the internet between February 2007 and October 2009 because that’s the only place they had a hope in hell of being seen.

  I’ve been trying to say this stuff for years in the traditional media, but criticising religion is frowned on in ultra-sensitive multicultural Britain, especially at the BBC, so I had to be content with talking about it in comedy clubs and fringe theatres until I discovered internet video.

  Early in 2007 I was looking for ways to publicise my show, Faith Hope & Sanity – A few jokes about religion before it kills us all, when I found something called The Blasphemy Challenge, an atheist campaign that invited people to make a short video of themselves denying the holy spirit (the only unforgivable sin) to show they weren’t afraid of hellfire.

  It seemed like a fun idea, so I made a video in my garden shed and posted it on YouTube. I didn’t expect much to come of it, other than perhaps persuading a few people to come and see the show, and I was surprised and delighted to see it rack up thousands of hits in the first few days.

  I realised this was a medium I should investigate further, so I made another video, Hello America, which had similar success, and it dawned on me that I could reach far more people like this than by poncing around in small theatres night after night, so I decided to ditch the show and focus on the internet.

  Five and a half hours of video and thirty million hits later I’m still grateful for the chance to speak my mind to a wider audience without being censored. The novelty hasn’t yet worn off, and so far I’ve been able to say what I like without interference, although with some censure.

  The Trouble with Islam caused a minor ripple in Berkeley, California, in May 2007 when members of the local “Peace and Justice Commission” (I kid you not) condemned it as racist hate speech, which, in retrospect, and given that it was Berkeley, I’ve decided to take as a compliment.

  Also, I fell foul of YouTube’s notorious flagging policy in October 2008 when they removed Welcome to Saudi Britain for hate speech, because in it I call the country of Saudi Arabia mentally ill, which it very definitely is (and that’s being kind).

  However, hundreds of YouTube users responded by uploading the video to their own accounts, flooding the site with it. When the National Secular Society (of which I am a member) added its voice to the protest, the press picked up the story, whereupon YouTube promptly reinstated the video. Since then I’ve had no problems (though my videos are blocked in Dubai, I’m told).

  I’ve tried to be as reasonable as I can in these videos, but when dealing with religion we’re faced with the unreasonable, the intolerant, the outlandish and the preposterous, so, if you detect a certain harshness of tone, put it down to the fact that you can’t cut through granite with an ordinary drill.

  In other words, polite debate and respectful dialogue are wasted on religion, and if that’s what you’ve come here for you’re in the wrong place.

  Godless and free is what I want to be. I don’t think it’s too much to ask, but, even if it is, I’m asking anyway, and I’m not taking no for an answer.

  I don’t expect everyone to agree with me. I know some atheists dislike my videos because they find them too insulting, and we’ll have to agree to differ on that, as I don’t think it’s possible to be too insulting to a religious fundamentalist – though I’m always willing to try.

  Others tell me I shouldn’t refer to religion as mental illness, as it demeans people with real mental problems. Well, I think religious people have real mental problems. If you go through life thinking there’s something wrong with you because of what Adam and Eve did six thousand years ago, then you’re right, there is something wrong with you – it’s called religion.

  Most of the mail I get is very positive (though inevitably some isn’t, as you can see on my website) and I’m grateful for everyone’s support.

  Christians generally agree with me about Islam, while wanting to put me right about God and Jesus. Some Muslims tell me I’m right to speak out against Islamism, while others call me a racist. To the white supremacists I’m a race traitor. You can’t win them all, I guess.

  Also, I get a fair amount of abuse from left wing members of the multicultural appeasement lobby who are as blindly religious in their convictions as the Islamist nutcases they support.

  These noble egalitarians don’t see any irony in making common cause with misogynistic homophobic anti-Semites because they happen to sharerulent hatred of America, yet they seem to expect their opinions to be taken seriously – it’s quite amazing.

  In Apologists for Evil I explain how these clowns have poisoned my political outlook and helped to ensure that, though my leftish liberal views are still fairly intact, I’ll never vote for a left wing party again.

  As for religion, it goes without saying that I believe all gods are imaginary, all prophets are false, and all scriptures are lies.

  I also believe that getting your morals from religion is like getting health advice from a tobacco company, and allowing religious sensibilities (especially Islamic ones) to censor free opinion is cultural suicide.

  In a nutshell, freedom is my religion and the god of the desert is my Satan. Non-submission, heresy and blasphemy are my sacraments, and anyone who’s offended by that can drop dead.

  I hope you enjoy this book. In making a video, I prepare what I’m going to say in the same way I would a comedy routine, so how it comes out depends on the moment (no, I don’t read from a teleprompter – thanks for asking); therefore some of this stuff isn’t perfect prose. I considered tidying it up, but once you start messing around with a thing there’s never any end to it, so I’ve left it pretty much as it is.

  The transcripts are published in the order they were originally recorded, and are prefaced by the introduction to the Anthology DVD released by the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science in April 2008 (the only video that hasn’t appeared on the internet) in which I try to explain what I’m about. I hope it will serve as a mini introduction to this book as well.

  Introduction to ‘Anthology’ DVD

  Released by the Richard Dawkins Foundation, April 2008

  Hi everyone. I’m Pat Condell. Welcome to this video compilation.

  If you’ve seen me on the internet then you probably know that I really don’t care whether God created man or man created God, but I think whichever one was responsible deserves a really good kicking.

  People often ask me why I feel the need to be abrasive, even insulting about religion. Well, I don’t think I am insulting, quite honestly. I think I’m positively emollient, all things considered. But if on occasion I am insulting it’s because that’s the only way I can give religion the respect I think it deserves.

  And, although I’ve got no special desire to offend anyone, let’s be honest, if you’re talking about religion and you’re not offending people, then you’re not really talking about religion, which I believe has shown itself to be completely unworthy as a conduit to higher understanding because it makes no attempt to understand anything. It already has all the answers, and not a single one supported by evi
dence.

  Indeed, virtually every statement religion makes about reality is an open invitation to mockery and ridicule, so if I were to give it any respect at all Ic afraid I would instantly lose all respect for myself, because I believe that to be righteously certain about something you can’t possibly know is the mark of a fool, and calling it faith doesn’t give it any more dignity.

  We also know that faith is often a get-out-of-jail card for crazy, so when faith is around crazy is never going to be too far away, which is not exactly a comforting thought in this looming age of nuclear theocracies.

  Also, religion empowers mediocrity. It gives every inadequate control freak the authority to point God’s wrathful finger and to unload the poison inside their own miserable heart on to some other poor bastard who’s doing nothing wrong, but is doing something different.

  It tells me that, as a human being, I must atone for the sin of existing. Well, I’ve tried, but I can’t find anything wrong with existing. Maybe I’ve got a warped sense of values, but I just can’t bring myself to see it as a crime. Sorry.

  Of course I realise that there are people who get joy and fulfilment from their religious beliefs, and I’ve got no problem with any of that. Why should I have? What am I, a philistine? Of course not. Anyone who gets a good healthy buzz from their faith, good luck to them I say. It’s the unhealthy buzz I have a problem with – the one that comes from the glorification of ignorance, from the indoctrination of children, and from the celebration of death. The one that wants to impose itself like a blanket of fog over everyone whether they like it or not.

  And, as we encourage this mentality (which we do now constantly) to be more and more demanding and intrusive, and as every concession we make to it is, I believe, a step into darkness, I think this bubble of insanity needs to be burst, and not massaged.

  So I’m not really here to be polite or to seek consensus. I’m not saying: “How can we work together to find a common understanding?” What I’m saying is something more along the lines of: “Get your insane beliefs out of my life, you ignorant manipulative liberty-taking sons of bitches.” Something more like that. Just so you know what you’re getting into here.

  I’d like to thank the Richard Dawkins Foundation for their help with this project. If the video quality is not all it could be I’m afraid that’s my fault, not theirs. When I started making these things I had no idea they would become in any way popular, so I didn’t keep the originals. I hope you’ll be able to forgive me for that, but, if not, fortunately I forgive myself.

  Thank you for watching. I hope you enjoy the videos whether you agree with them or not.

  I wish you peace, of course, but even more than that, may your children be atheists, for all our sakes.

  1.

  Response to the Blasphemy Challenge

  February 8, 2007

  Hello everybody, I’m Pat Condell, and I deny the holy spirit. Yes, I do.

  I deny the holy spirit in the morning, in the evening, and again last thing at night I make a point of actively denying the holy spirit.

  Indeed, when I’m not busy denying the holy spirit I’m not doing anything, because guess what – I’m always denying the holy spirit.

  That’s right, waiting at a bus stop, you might be filing your nails or reading a magazine. I’m denying the holy spirit.

  Walking down the street, you’re gazing into shop windows, whereas I’m doing something useful – denying the holy spirit.

  Why do I deny the holy spirit? Well, because if blasphemy was good enough for Jesus Christ, it’s good enough for me.

  And besides, like everyone else, I’ve seen what passes for the holy spirit in action, and I know that the holy spirit, if it ever existed, was long ago hijacked by criminals and liars, and is now as empty as a born again Christian smile.

  And this is why denying the holy spirit now takes up so much of my time I’m literally burning the Bible at both ends.

  That’s right, whether awake or asleep, I joyously deny the holy spirit every day and in every way – upwards, downwards, backwards, forwards, sideways, inside out, back to front and upside down in perpetuity, or forever, whichever lasts longer.

  Every moment of my life is a precious jewel of opportunity for me to deny the holy spirit and every nasty little thing it stands for.

  Every breath I take, every word I utter, my every action down to the minutest detail is calculated specifically to deny the holy spirit – that spiteful, vindictive and truly unholy spirit of the mythical psychopath in the sky.

  As for you, I can’t tell you what to do. But if you’ve got any sense, and if you care about your children’s sanity, you’ll deny the holy spirit, because the holy spirit denies you, as it denies me, and all of humanity.

  The holy spirit can be summed up in three words: “Thou shalt not!”

  Whatever you want to do, you can’t, you shouldn’t, you mustn’t, you won’t. And if you do, you’ll be tortured forever.

  That’s why the holy spirit is our enemy, not our friend. It wants us to deny our own nature, to remain fearful, ignorant and ashamed, to hate others as we hate ourselves, and to die without living, not to live without dying. And that in a nutshell is why I deny the holy spirit. Thank you very much. Peace.

  2.

  Hello America

  February 18, 2007

  Hello America. I’m Pat Condell, and I’m your friend, because I live in the UK, and our two countries have quite a lot in common, apart from the fact that everyone else on the planet hates our guts.

  We speak the same language, you and I, we share the same culture, more or less, and we worship the same god – a just god, a jealous god, a psychotic god whose vengeance is terrible to behold, especially if we’ve got anything to dowith it. Praise the Lord.

  Your president is a born again Christian, in the sense that Dracula was born again when he rose from the grave – or was that Jesus? Hmm. Do we drink his blood, or does he drink ours? I’ve often wondered about that one.

  Our prime minister is also a Christian, although I’m not sure if he’s been born again. Truth is a lot of people in my country are now sorry he was ever born in the first place.

  But you have a particular brand of Christianity in America which is unique and extremely creative, in that it bears absolutely no resemblance to the message of the prophet it supposedly reveres, and is in fact diametrically opposed to every single thing that he ever said without exception, which, if nothing else America, shows incredible balls on your part.

  In Britain we have an established church, which means that we are officially a Christian country. But, like you, we don’t discriminate. We’ll sell arms to anyone, and we really don’t care what atrocities they’re used for, as long as the money is right, because business is business. Praise the Lord.

  Because God is on our side we both know that when our country is doing evil it’s good evil as opposed to evil evil. And we know that good evil always defeats evil evil, except when evil evil cunningly disguises itself as good evil and becomes born again – then you’ve got a whole new ballgame.

  And your president plays this particular game very well indeed. We all know his history. We know how he used to be just a useless cocaine-snorting drink-driving draft-dodging daddy’s little rich boy hellraiser, until one day, after a chat with Billy Graham, he had a revelation that he had been chosen by God to be a dangerous delusional bigot. He was quickly shoehorned into the governorship of Texas where he finally found he had a talent for something – signing death warrants, praise the Lord. And from there it was just a short step to George W. the Lionheart, president of all Christendom.

  They say he’s very well connected, your president, and this doesn’t mean that his joints are all reinforced with steel wire – nothing as sinister as that. It simply means that he has a lot of corrupt and powerful friends who will stop at nothing to get their way. And by his own admission he invaded Iraq because one of these friends, namely God, instructed him to.

  N
ow I’m not going to try and tell you that your president George W. Bush is insane, because the way I see it you don’t actually need to be insane if you’re George W. Bush. If you’re a cynical small-minded nasty little born again hypocrite with a Bible in your hand, then frankly you’re already holding a royal flush, and you don’t need any more cards.

  And besides, he’s more than ably assisted in all his endeavours by our own insane Christian prime minister, another little man with blood on his hands which he didn’t get from having nails hammered through them, although I’m sure his press office would like us to believe otherwise.

  And we all know that he joined in with the invasion of Iraq because he felt the hand of history on his genitals, and because he wants a cowboy hat. The way he walks when he’s with Bush, it’s like they’re on their way to the OK Corral, or some other gay club.

  Butt turns out that some people in Iraq, for some inexplicable reason, don’t actually want freedom and democracy imposed on them from outside, which just proves the truth in the old saying, America, that you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him suck your cock.

  But never mind, because we’re still here, and we still love you. Yes, we do. And let me just say that we don’t feel at all used or defiled by you, America. Well, maybe we do just a little. Actually, maybe quite a lot. But it’s worth it for the privilege of being friends with you, even if you do insist on taking our fingerprints before you’ll let us into your country.

  Because frankly, America, you’ve saved our bacon. If not for you, we wouldn’t be the high profile country we are in the world today. Having lost an empire we were ready to be shunted away into the sidelines of history and forgotten.

  But now, thanks to you and your glorious mission from God, we find that we still have a role to play in the world, poking our nose in where it’s not wanted, stealing and wasting every precious resource we can get our greedy hands on, and kicking the shit out of brown people – the way Jesus would have wanted.