• Pat Condell: interview

  • By Malcolm Hay

  • Time Out meets Pat Condell, who doesn‘t respect your beliefs and doesn‘t care if you‘re offended

    Pat Condell: interview

    Pat Condell 'Hard? I'm not hard. But I won't flatter fuckwits'

  • Pat Condell doesn’t much care for any form of religion. ‘I’m not saying it doesn’t have its uses,’ he declares. ‘Personally, I turn to it whenever I want my intelligence insulted.’ He particularly dislikes what he calls ‘God’s little helpers’, the ones who ‘take it upon themselves to police the rest of us on His behalf’. He’s even sceptical about so-called religious moderates. ‘They’ve helped to nurture extremism by tolerating it in their midst and by constantly demanding respect for faith-based opinion.’

    The media, Condell says, give airtime to ‘lunatics like Christian Voice’ whenever there’s a storm in a teacup like the arguments over ‘Jerry Springer: the Opera’. ‘Or, when Muslims erupt in fury over nothing, as with the recent veil nonsense, the BBC invites some hate-mongering fuckwit who represents nobody to speak for all the Muslims in Britain.’ Feature continues

    Advertisement

    He’s expressing these and other controversial views in his stand-up show ‘Faith Hope and Sanity’, subtitled ‘A Few Jokes About Religion Before It Kills Us All’. He’s mounting a simultaneous assault on three separate fronts. ‘It seems to me that fundamentalist Christians, jihadist Muslims and settlement-building Jews are causing more than their share of trouble in the world. World events are being driven by people with apocalyptic delusions, while here in Britain a paralysing liberal guilt allows religious bigots to use intimidation and violence to stamp out free speech. If you can’t get laughs out of all that, you can’t get them out of anything.’

    Condell’s 56. He was born an Irish Catholic but educated in Church of England schools. ‘I found myself segregated in assembly and shunted into another room while everyone said their morning prayers. I didn’t mind. The whole pantomime seemed hollow to me even then. Once you become aware of the gulf between what people profess to believe and how they actually behave, it’s hard to take any of it seriously.’

  • Add your comment to this feature
  • Page 1: 1 2

15 comments

  1. Posted by Pete on 21 May 2008 07:46

    Pat for Prime Minister

  2. Posted by anonymous on 16 Apr 2008 04:29

    in conclusion i think pat is an old angry man with a serious lack of knowledge who is probably suffering from chronic depression because quite clearly if anyone actually looks in to his aquisation its all a bunch of lies. he is an sad man with a dictionary picking out every bad word out of it and using it to describe well established religions. to be honest i think he is the one who is suffering from a mental illness. please do your research and make sure they are from reliable resources. i just cannot believe a mature man of pats age can accuse religions of being as he described with such a small knowledge base, i mean come on he the guy has not got a clue and i cant believe people are actually agreeing with him.

  3. Posted by Anonymous on 16 Apr 2008 04:16

    pat does not have a clue about half the things he says. he is accusing religions of things which do not exist. i laugh at his videos not with him. im am amused at the lack of knowledge he is basing his arguements on. islam does not in any way promote woman beating or child abuse and to be honest if pat does his research (thats if he can read) he would not in a single book find any evidence of that. in conclusion i laugh at pat and his ignorance towards the whole topic and i also feel sorry at the fact that he doesnt really no anything and i bet he is being laughed at by alot of people with even the slightest bit of knowledge about any religion. and to the people that are agreeing with him you also do not have any real evidence to support his stupidness. all i can say is "god bless pat"

  4. Posted by Rumble on 24 Mar 2008 10:01

    It doesn't really matter if you agree with Pat Condell nor does it matter if you think he is a racist, the point is, he CAN make them and you are free to decide whatever you want. Try that in some parts of the world!

  5. Posted by danny on 01 Mar 2008 22:50

    has alot to say but not exactly knowledge of what he says.
    a big dick if you ask me

  6. Posted by chiller cabinet on 24 Feb 2008 13:40

    wow, i am so glad im not alone, pat you took the words right out of my mouth, youre vids on u tube r so right, everyone knows DEEP IN THERE HEARTS its true what u say, but would never admit it, they just carry on behaving badly, well nevermind, as u would say, peace.

  7. Posted by Laura Norder QC on 15 Feb 2008 16:04

    Pat is probably one of the most significant contributors to the long awaited debate on religions in this complex day and age. His delivery is both clear and positive and should be listened to and digested and then perhaps others will begin to recognise religion's influence on today's UK undemocratic politics. Carry on the good work Pat.

  8. Posted by Alex Wood on 11 Feb 2008 10:14

    I watch all of pats videos. He is right. The sad thing is, we have a culture too. The muslims can do what they want in their country, we dont really go over there, and preach whatever we beleive in (because we can be killed for preaching anything but islam) but they seem to feel that islam should take over the world. its working i guess.

  9. Posted by Kay on 31 Jan 2008 09:25

    to zoe: 'engages the hate speech' ?, when it comes to religion, it is a never ending hate speech , why is religion allowed to have a say then?

  10. Posted by Jennie Allen on 09 Jan 2008 23:01

    It's about time someone among us has the balls, wit and intelligence to lend solid and humorous voice to all I've always wanted to say, but never had the guts to utter...Hooray for Pat!

  11. Posted by FGFM on 27 Nov 2007 04:44

    "Atheists like Pat (and myself) are not racist in any way."
    Keep telling yourself that, one day even you might believe it!

  12. Posted by Elwood Herring on 27 Sep 2007 14:38

    To Zoe: Islam is not a RACE. Islam is a RELIGION. Spot the difference. In case you can't, I'll spell it out for you. You can choose your religion but not your race. Atheists like Pat (and myself) are not racist in any way. The solution is to wash away religious dogma by replacing it with reason. Nobody has to get hurt.

  13. Posted by MrPeach on 26 Sep 2007 18:25

    Pat Condell is both right and very funny, a rare combination of abilities these days (hell, just being right is hard enough). Go Pat Go!!! Atheists need to use whatever abilities we have to help the deluded open their eyes to reality, and Pat is a hell of a tool! (oops, I hope that came across right, lol)

  14. Posted by zoe on 13 Jun 2007 10:59

    i was going to post my own comment but i think whoa0 said it all i completely agree...ok mybe just one point : dear attention loving Pat says 'Islam is an illness' if so then what cure does he propose something like the final solution of the Nazis
    or ethnic cleansing of Bosnia? This guy is not funny and enages in hate speech Time Out must have better people to feature.

  15. Posted by Alban Bytyci on 24 May 2007 17:17

    He is right. I am Brit Albanian, who loves the freedom of this country and who cannot understand why religion is given so much of our precious attention (money) just to blind more people with Dogma. I do not respect your beliefs otherwise i would vote for you.

15 comments

Have your say






Travel Supermarket
Venere.com
Expedia.co.uk logo
hotel.info
Hotels.com

More ways to enjoy Time Out