How Google Complete Queries About Christian Right Figures…


Ron was playing around with Google’s predictive text feature and noticed that if he typed in the names of some conservative Christians, Google suggested some interesting query completions

Other examples are on his site.

He left out the “Ted Haggard is” query (which I find amusing).

And the “Rick Warren is” query was surprising to me given his popularity.

Type them in (sans quotation marks) and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

(Thanks to Sandra for the link!)

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20 Responses

  1. avatar ccubeman Says:

    Throw Richard Dawkins in there – it’s not pretty.

    Fortunately for Hemant, the predictive results are nil.

  2. avatar Raul Says:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZmHC75FDqQ

    Hahah

    Ted Haggard is a completely heterosexual

  3. avatar Sandra Says:

    @ ccubeman -
    If you type ‘atheists are’ you get the usual stuff; ‘Christianity is’ I found surprising though.

    Hmmm I think I will try ‘Catholic priests are’ next. :P

  4. avatar Susan B. Says:

    Mathematicians are people too
    Mathematicians are like frenchmen
    Mathematicians are sexy

    I think I like this game!

  5. avatar Stephen P Says:

    While we’re on Google, have you ever tried doing a search for “recursion”? (Will particularly appeal to geeks.)

  6. avatar Shane Says:

    Funny. If you try “Islam is” or “Muslims are”, you get nothing.

  7. avatar Loulou Says:

    try “christianity is”. It’s pretty funny too.

  8. avatar NewDark Says:

    Try throwing in Joel Osteen in there… that’s a good one as well :)

  9. avatar anthuswilliams Says:

    It does the same thing with Barack Obama. Second result down: Barack Obama is the AntiChrist. Also included, Barack Obama is socialist, and Barack Obama is a Muslim.

    I guess this means more people do searches for negative shit than for positive?

  10. avatar sc0tt Says:

    Ted Haggard is query

    LOL!

  11. avatar Sackbut Says:

    While we’re on Google, have you ever tried doing a search for “recursion”? (Will particularly appeal to geeks.)

    “Did you mean recursion

    Ha! Thanks for the tip.

  12. avatar Daniel Says:

    Jerry Falwell is particularly amusing.

  13. avatar David Says:

    Jerry Falwell is particularly amusing.

    So is Barack Obama.

  14. avatar Philbert Says:

    Funny. If you try “Islam is” or “Muslims are”, you get nothing.

    You’re right! First suggestions for “X is a”:

    Christianity – cult, lie, hoax
    Judaism – race, religion of the book, gutter religion
    Buddhism – religion, lie, cult
    Hnduism – way of life, joke, lie
    Pastafarianism – religion (sole answer)
    Atheism – religion, non-prophet organization, religion like collecting stamps is a hobby

    Islam –

    Google’s got nothing for Islam.

  15. avatar Dan W Says:

    That’s amusing, to be sure. What’s irritating is what pops up if you type in Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, or other well known “new” atheists. Similarly, typing in “atheists are” gets 10 completions, the first 7 of which are rather unfavorable: wrong, going to hell, fools, ignorant, immoral, retarded, not citizens… *sigh*

  16. avatar St. Eutychus » Google has all the answers Says:

    [...] Friendly Atheist thought it was pretty funny that Google says mean things about some Christian leaders when you type their names and “is” using Google’s [...]

  17. avatar Kelseigh Says:

    The first choice for “Barack Obama is” made me laugh out loud.

  18. avatar Tinna G. Gígja Says:

    I thought it was weird too that nothing came up for islam or muslims…”the quran is” brings up two positive and two negative ones (although the first one is a bit stupid), and “Allah is”, “islam will” and “islam should”, as well as “muslims will” and “muslims should”, all bring up plenty of “insults”, so if trying to prevent insult was the goal, they didn’t do it too thoroughly. F*ing Jihad on them!

    The suggestions for “Google is”, “The meaning of life is”, and the last one for “Hitler is” made me laugh.

  19. avatar Robert Madewell Says:

    I thought the results for “agnostics are” was funny too.

  20. avatar Tinna G. Gígja Says:

    “Americans are”, “canadians are”, “the french are” show nothing, but “israelis are” and “palestinians are” show mixed suggestions.

    “Gay people are” gives “gay people are gay” as the second suggestion.

    I found the results for “snopes is” both reassuring and worrying. The ones for “Iceland is” are slightly bizarre, as is the third one for “greenland is”.

    Sorry, I’m having way too much fun with this.

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