Imagine you are a member of a religious sect that was denied access to the largest online social networking service. You’d be pretty upset about being discriminated against because of your beliefs, right? Now imagine you are an atheist group whose website was deleted from that same social networking service because a bunch of Christians complained …
Actually, you don’t have to imagine the second scenario, because it has already happened:
For the third time in three years, what may be the largest group of organized atheists in the world is struggling to stay on MySpace, said a Cleveland State University assistant professor who founded the site for nonbelievers.
MySpace deleted the 35,000-member “Atheist and Agnostic Group” on Jan. 1, a little more than a month after hackers broke in and renamed the group’s site “Jesus Is Love,” Bryan Pesta said Wednesday.
MySpace has ignored repeated requests to restore the group’s site, including an online petition with more than 500 signatures, said Pesta, who was the group’s moderator.
“These actions send a clear message to the 30 million godless people in America that we are not welcome on MySpace,” Pesta said. […]
. . . Two years ago, Pesta said, MySpace deleted the group after an organized campaign from Christians opposing the site. MySpace restored it and promised it would be protected, Pesta said.
Last Thanksgiving, hackers broke into the group’s site, deleting material and renaming it “Jesus Is Love.” MySpace restored the site three weeks later but then shut it down this year, Pesta said.
Why are so many Christians afraid of atheists? As far as I know they don’t practice ritual baby sacrifices, or drink blood, or bow down to a statue of Satan. Indeed, atheists are not an organized religion and they practice no rituals at all. All they do is occasionally say they don’t believe in God — anyone’s God — whether that god is Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, whatever.
And why is MySpace so concerned about the complaints of a few so-called Christians that it felt the need to delete this website without any justification other than some of its other members don’t like the views expressed by atheists at that site. Surely MySpace has sites devoted to Islamic groups, Mormon groups, liberal groups, conservative groups, etc. who all have been granted the right to form a social networking site based around their religious and political views, despite the fact that I’m certain other people object to the views and beliefs they espouse. So why single out atheists?
I guess in America, you have the freedom to believe in God, but not the freedom to believe in no god. Always nice to learn what are the limits on freedom in America, isn’t it?
Who would Jesus hack?
Excuse me, I need a moment here.
No, that didn’t really help. And now I have a headache.
How about, you know, tolerance? Live and let live? Would that be so f*cking hard?
Is there no legal recourse?
I understood that the Civil Rights Act prevented discrimination on the basis of creed and religion.
I think they might be wise to file suit, specifically in a California state court under California law, alleging that California residents are being discriminated against in an Online community based on their beliefs.
I say California because they have the clearest law that recently was updated to include online discrimination. I think eHarmony is being sued now under this law for discriminating against gays.
Is it insecurity? I don’t understand it.
I asked too many questions from a position of genuine faith at my religious school (Lutheran), got pretty poor answers, then was asked not to come back the next year.
(I became an agnostic, and then an athiest, shortly thereafter)
Remember, Fox owns Myspace now.
‘Nuff said.
What really pisses me off is that if even the most wackjob Christian group were discriminated against like this, I’d have to support their protests against the attack on their freedom. That’s what those who believe in reason and democracy are forced to do.
Unfortunately, the Christian theocrat vision of freedom applies only to them. In a country of fools, puerile fantasy beats reality every time.
As far as I can tell, theocratic vision perceives personal freedom as subservient to God’s will; therefore, agents of God’s will are required to battle expressions of freedom that seem contradictory to it.
In terms of their own personal freedom, they get wiggle room simply because they’re agents of God. In fact, the farther they stray from their own perception of God’s will, the harder they have to ‘make up’. In this case, too, self-loathing & self-punishment are perfectly correct, since the battle to adhere to God’s will also takes place within.
In my personal opinion, anyone claiming to know ‘God’s will’ that intimately is rather dim to start with.
If you see your life’s purpose in terms of ongoing war, then even the smallest battle is worth fighting.
Additionally, it seems that NewsCorp assists in sustaining this particular illusion in the interests of retaining a certain market share.
I’d also like to know if there’s legal recourse.
I suppose a legal challenge is an option, but I’d much rather see a propaganda campaign pointing out to the young’uns that using Myspace is giving money to people who want to stomp on their freedom. Let Myspace become just another padded cell for theocrat nutjobs. And put a dent in Murdoch’s purse at the same time.
Wouldn’t that be great!
Unfortunately, this would require that many young people actually boycott their most vital community.
The Corporation has largely eliminated actual, living community for most Americans, in which individuals are interdependent & actually find purpose (let alone substantive employment); for bottom-line benefit, we are offered the virtual, because human beings do need community of some sort as a matter of psychic make-up. We are social, not solitary.
With the creation of community by the corporate, our understanding of what community is actually for becomes completely distorted. Virtual community, for example, feeds no one directly; when our most vital community is virtual, we lose the understanding of why we need community at all. Therefore, it comes down to our very basic psychic make-up as a servant of corporate manipulation.
We won’t even talk about the need for true community when avenues of political organization are also corporatized.
Frankly, I think the entire situation is a f*cking nightmare — for reasons that I’m sure will become clearer as we go forward.
(Disclaimer: I have as of late been forced to watch the teevee. It makes me cranky.)