Censorship

This has been an interesting few days when in comes to censorship. Some things are small, existing only in the YouTube world, and another, more recent romp has taken place on a much larger scale of interest.

Let's start small. Recently, on of the evangelists on YouTube, VenomFangX, was banned, most likely to do statements that could be taken as offensive to Islam (then again, what isn't when it comes to Muslim fundamentalists/extremists). Venom is not a diplomatic person and is wonderful and misrepresentation, distortion, and plain-and-simple diarrhea of the mouth. Many people took this temporary banning as ironic because VenomFangX is well known for censoring comments he does not like and banning certain people from his channel. (The latter also has the irony of being counterproductive to evangelizing: if you prevent people from knowing when you are giving "sermons," how can you properly evangelize?) So, that one religious fundamentalist who censors is censored by other religious fundamentalists, the irony is overwhelming. And though Venom has not be respected by the atheists on YouTube, many made videos to protest his banning. Yeah free speech defenders. I must agree with these persons against YouTube. Even if misinformation is what is produced, the free exchange of ideas should not be suppressed. Of course, like all extremists, Venom has not taken his lesson on censorship to heart as he still censors his comments.

And when it comes to this sort of action, plenty of other YouTubers were more than willing to see the amassing of contradiction.








However, this pales in the face of what has happened to biologist PZ Myers, best known for his blog Pharyngula. While attempting to enter a screening of the propaganda movie Expelled with his family and friends, he was singled out by the producer who ordered a police officer to leave the theater. This is odd since Myers is in the documentary and had registered beforehand in order to see the film. What is more odd is that even though he was forced to leave, one of his friends was not: Richard Dawkins, the modern face of Darwinism and atheism.

Of course, the real issue here is that a movie that is about the iron fist of scientists in their control of information and academia is trying to regulate who can see the movie and on what terms. The producers have already run their spin doctors on one critic of the movie, claiming he was a "security breach." A movie about freedom of speech and they are complaining about his trying to hear Ben Stein's blather? Are they really about the freedom of ideas, or is it that they can only project their own delusion and hypocrisy and intolerance onto others? And because of this, they are the laughing stock of the world. Expelling people from the movie Expelled is just sad, especially when the person they forced away is in the film itself and is thanked in the credits! Here is Dawkins and Myers talking on the subject:



Now, lies are flying everywhere about this, so let me farm a few links on the subject to keep the record straight.
PZ1
PZ2
PZ3
PT1
PT2
PT3
PT4
PT5
PT6
BA1
BA2
RD

As you can see by reading all these links, the story of the people of Expelled are making changes to the story, such as PZ needed a ticket, that he was trying to record the movie, that he was going to bother other people there, etc.

And there are reports of the movie just being plain bad from an artistic and entertainment standpoint. I had no plans in seeing the movie in the theater; if I do see it, it will be of no profit to the producers.

So, the censors are flying, the hypocrisy is rich, the irony is lost on the fundamentalists--I only hope that this leads to a few good laughs instead of promotion for this utter BS of a film.

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Apparently, Mark Mathis admits PZ was kicked out because he didn't like him:

You should know that I invited Michael shermer to a screening at NRB in Nashville. He came and is writing a review for scientific American. I banned pz because I want him to pay to see it. Nothing more.

PZ has another account as well, double-confirming that Mathis was just being an ass and a liar.

Also, there is an interesting this Mathis said: "Unlike the Darwinist establishment, we expell no one." How the hell could he possibly say that with a straight face? He kicked out someone because he doesn't like him or his views on the movie, kicked him out of a film about freedom of speech, and says he expels no one? WTF, mate?

Why don't fundamentalists understand irony?