Alex O'Connor

    

Alex O'Connor
YouTuber Information
Profile	Alex O'Connor
Style	Commentary
Date joined	February 2, 2013
Twitter / X	@CosmicSkeptic
Facebook	cosmicskeptic
Instagram and Threads	@cosmicskeptic
Other media	Soundcloud Website Patreon PayPal Merch
Videos	440+
Status	Active
Associates	Earthling Ed • Joey Carbstrong • Genetically Modified Skeptic • Owen Morgan (Telltale)
Username	Alex O'Connor
Personal information
Full name	Alex J. O’Connor
Nationality	English
Location	Oxford, England, United Kingdom
Channel trailer
Deconstructing Jordan Peterson on Religion
Most viewed video
First video
Guitar Solo Behind My Head )

More Alex O’Connor
YouTuber Information
Profile	More Alex O’Connor
Style	Commentary
Date joined	October 23, 2020
Videos	100+
Status	Active
Username
Channel trailer
Cosmic Skeptic on Grounding Meaning Without Religion
Most viewed video
First video
Cosmic Skeptic on The Fine Tuning Argument

Casualex
YouTuber Information
Profile	Casualex
Style	Music
Date joined	September 20, 2016
Videos	6+
Status	Semi-Active
Username
Channel trailer
Don't Tell Me if it's Ending (Original Song) - Alex O'Connor and Charlie Shan
Most viewed video
With You - Original Song
First video
With You (Performance) - Alex O'Connor - Original Song

Alex O'Connor Skateboarding
YouTuber Information
Profile	Alex O'Connor Skateboarding
Style	Skateboarding
Date joined	March 20, 2014
Twitter / X	@AlexO_Connor
Videos	2
Status	Inactive
Username	Alex O'Connor
Channel trailer
Trailer - CosmicSkeptic
Most viewed video
Trailer - CosmicSkeptic
First video
Trailer - CosmicSkeptic

The History Of . . .
YouTuber Information
Profile	The History Of . . .
Style	Education
Date joined	April 1, 2015
Videos	1
Status	Inactive
Username
Channel trailer
The 4 Minute History Of Coca Cola
Most viewed video
The 4 Minute History Of Coca Cola
First video
The 4 Minute History Of Coca Cola

Alex J. O’Connor (born: March 27, 1999 (1999-03-27)), also known online as CosmicSkeptic, is an English YouTuber who uploads debates and arguments about religion, morality and (formerly) veganism. He graduated with degrees in philosophy and theology at St John’s College at Oxford University, and is an atheist.

Personal life

Alex was born on March 27, 1999 and grew up in Blackbird Leys, Oxford. He was raised Catholic. His father left his home when Alex was nine years old. His mother later left work due to cancer.

When he first did his A-levels, he got DDDU grades. He then took them again with different subjects, and got A*AA, the grades needed to get into Oxford University.

Veganism

Alex gave up animal products on April 12, 2019. He was an advocate for veganism and animal rights. He has discussed this position in videos with Matt Dillahunty, Earthling Ed, Peter Singer, and Joey Carbstrong. He also convinced Genetically Modified Skeptic to become vegetarian.

He has also discussed the topic with Telltale, who controversially suggested that veganism is an extremist position. Alex called this stance “not only ridiculous but dangerous”.

On February 13, 2023, Alex announced via a community post on his YouTube channel that he is no longer vegan and has gone back to eating animal products. On March 10, 2023, Alex made a 15-minute video further elaborating on his community post and explaining his reasoning for quitting veganism in more detail. Various vegan YouTubers, such as Lifting Vegan Logic and Joey Carbstrong responded to his community post, and later his video as well.

Controversies

Feud With Mohammed Hijab

On May 2, 2019, Alex debated the idea that Islam explains reality better than atheism, with Mohammed Hijab and Abdullah al Andalusi, at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. There was criticism of the debate, including accusations of Mohammed “strawmanning” Alex (the practice of misrepresenting someone else’s argument), and people interrupting each other.

On May 17, 2020, Mohammed accused Alex of racism. On May 18, 2020, Mohammed stated that he had been called a terrorist by supporters of Alex.Alex responded in a tweet saying he was “just as disgusted”. He urged people to not “throw words like ‘terrorist’ around lightly”, and that he did not support such accusations.

On May 18, 2020, Alex tweeted a video of Mohammed saying that the Cowley area of Oxford was “All Muslim” and that “you don’t want to make enemies”. Many interpreted the statements as threatening, and urged Alex to report Mohammed.

‪The ‬Islamic Education and Research Academy (‪iERA) originally offered that Alex could upload a specified section of the debate, but not in full, to his channel, four weeks after they had uploaded it. He thought this seemed reasonable at the time, since they had provided the filming. Their conditions were that Alex should not edit the clip or restrict or manipulate the comments section, and that he should properly credit the iERA as the owners of the footage. Alex stated that these conditions were not respected by the iERA. Alex also stated that the iERA edited the footage to add separately filmed content that appeared to have been said in the original debate, but was not. He supported this by pointing out discontinuity in the video.On May 18, 2020, Alex said the iERA had told him he couldn’t have the footage of the debate because the camera men had to be paid. Alex was later given permission to upload only the opening statements of the debate, and stated in the comments that “the original upload has around 1.25 million views, and yet only around 700 comments” and that “this gives a false impression of public perception and negates the whole purpose of having an open discussion.” Before this, Alex had offered to donate all revenue from the full video of the debate to any charity of Mohammed Hijab’s choice, or directly to iERA, or turn to advertisements off.

On May 17, Alex uploaded "EXPOSED: Mohammed Hijab's DISHONESTY | **DEBATE REVIEW**". He stated that the title was deliberately “clickbaity”, as Mohammed had also used clickbait. Alex wrote in a comment “I can do clickbait too, Mohammed.” Mohammed also quoted Alex quoting somebody else, relating to the idea that something came from nothing, and said this was a claim that Alex was making, that he would then have to defend. The statement came from a video about the Kalam Cosmological Argument, in which he granted a premise for the sake of argument. Alex also pointed out Mohammed using the Tu Quoque fallacy in relation to a point about morality.

On July 10, 2019, Alex alleged that Mohammed controlled comments on the video, and removed critical comments, stating that there were “a disproportionately tiny number of comments for a video with nearly half a million views”. He also stated that his own comment failed to appear, and that he emailed Mohammed’s team about it.

Twitter user Holy Koolaid tested the hypothesis that Mohammed was controlling comments by leaving one of his own, accusing him of dishonesty. Alex could not find that comment. At one point during the debate, Alex was referencing a verse in the Quran about wife-beating and his audio suspiciously cut out. He left a comment transcribing what was said at that point, but the comment disappeared. Alex argued that the error could have been fixed during editing, but was not, unlike when Mohammed had a similar error at the beginning of the debate, which was later fixed.

Trivia

• Youtuber Unsolicited advice has appeared on his Within Reason podcast.
• Fans have a running joke about an unusual chest of drawers. Alex does not know where he got them. They can be seen in the background of this video.
• He plays guitar, and used to be in a band. His first YouTube videos were guitar videos.
• In 2019, he appeared on Channel 4 News, discussing free speech.
• Some fans have joke about him being related to Genetically Modified Skeptic.