The Advent of Religious Search Engines 583
Beetle B. writes "Do Google search results contradict your religious views? Tired of getting pornographic results and worried you'll burn in Hell for it? Are you Christian? Try SeekFind — 'a Colorado Springs-based Christian search engine that only returns results from websites that are consistent with the Bible.' Muslim? Look no further: I'm Halal. Jewish? Jewogle is for you. NPR ran a story on the general trend of search engines cropping up to cater to certain religious communities. I wonder how many other 'filtered' search engines exist out there to cater to various groups (religious or otherwise) — not counting specialized searches (torrents, etc)."
How Modern Tech Narrows Minds ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Now you can know all that you can see with a diminished field of view. Another way to look at how technology does not equate with 'progress'.
CC.
Vertical search is fairly old (Score:5, Insightful)
stupid people (Score:4, Insightful)
there. i said it.
millions of people around the world are suffering because they don't have access to information that is freely available on the internet, and still there are idiots out there who want to have their search results filtered.
ok, you don't wanna see a naked lady by accident. I get it. there's tons of things on the internet that I personally don't want to ever see (and I would do my best to keep children from seeing them). but if you don't want to hear what people with other convictions have to say in reasonable scenarios, then I say you're an idiot.
go ahead. sick your gdodg on me.
Re:How Modern Tech Narrows Minds ... (Score:4, Insightful)
More like how narrow minds abuse modern tech.
What about buddhism? And hinduism? (Score:1, Insightful)
No search engines for buddhism? Or hinduism? Or pastafarianism?
Re:Atheist (Score:5, Insightful)
Every atheist accepts that there is no deity on blind faith and without further investigation.
Nope, absolutely false. Many atheists are simply skeptics who refuse to accept the existence of the Gods unless you provide irrefutable proof. No blind faith required, any more than blind faith is required to not believe in unicorns or the tooth fairy. Furthermore, many atheists have investigated various religions in great depth--quite a few became atheists only with great reluctance, when their search for a plausible faith turned up empty. I say this as an agnostic, not an atheist, but one who knows many atheists. There are probably some atheists who are as you describe, but in my experience, they are a rare minority.
smart (Score:2, Insightful)
It's always smart to exclude search results that don't match your personal prejudice.
Re:imstupid.com (Score:4, Insightful)
They're absolutely right, there's no proof that god doesn't exist.
Of course, there's also no proof that unicorns, pixies or demonic badgers from Neptune don't exist either - it's amazing how many things you can't prove don't exist.
Re:Atheist (Score:3, Insightful)
You know I'm fed up of this every atheist has blind faith thing...
So if I state that I don't believe in any god then am I an atheist? This being different from saying I believe there is no god. The second statement requires faith, the first does not. I'm not saying there isn't one, just that I see no evidence for one therefore it doesn't make a point of my world view.
Is lack of belief a belief? (except the belief in logical conjecture based upon repeatable experiment and evidence)
I don't claim to be agnostic because that has connotations of god potentially being allowed in my current world view, which isn't the case. Can't an atheist be someone who just doesn't believe in god, as opposed to believes that there is no god.
I think historically - say middle ages - then someone would have to say they believed there wasn't a god because there wasn't a good explanation for many natural phenomenon. These days so many phenomenon are explained then it is more applicable to be able to say I don't believe in any god (because there is no evidence/need for one).
So there is, for me, no faith needed that there is no god, just like there is no faith needed that there is no invisible pink unicorn that makes sure that gravity happens. Be careful what you ascribe to faith, faith is a concept held in lack of evidence. There is sufficient evidence for me that no god is needed and that my world view can be almost completely described as a lack of faith in pretty much anything, but a marvel and wonder at everything.
Re:What about buddhism? And hinduism? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Atheist (Score:5, Insightful)
Every atheist accepts that there is no deity on blind faith and without further investigation.
Nonsense! Rejecting superstition on the grounds that there is no scientific evidence is not blind faith, it is purely logical. Would religious people accept being labeled as blind faith atheists of other deities such as Thor or Zeus? As an example, Christians reject belief in countless deities, is it really so unreasonable to merely subtract one more deity from that list without being labelled a blind faith fanatic of atheism?
Re:Atheist (Score:5, Insightful)
---"atheist accepts that there is no deity on blind faith and without further investigation"
not true at all. allow me to present myself as someone who has studied the synoptic gospels in far more detail than (and I'm guessing now) 98% of people who call themselves christian.
Re stating 'I Know', Richard Dawkins has a great thought experiment on this.
-Statement: There is a perfect Victorian china tea set orbiting the sun in an orbit about half way between the sun and the earth.
My position: I'm willing to say that I know this statement is false.
Nope, I haven't been to look and I don't think any rockets have gone to check. However from my understanding of the field, I am willing to take a position.
I could say 'I don't know'. It's possible that the Russians set this up as an elaborate joke. However at some point, saying 'I don't know' just becomes fetishism. It is useful to take a position when the opposing one is vanishingly unlikely.
The same applies to god. If you show me some evidence, then I'll change my mind. But from an examination of current evidence, I say that the existence of some involved creator is vanishingly unlikely.
Therefore I say that god does not exist and declare myself an atheist.
Re:Atheist (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem, speaking as an atheist (and also the light version of how I became an atheist), is not whether or not an invisible man exists, its whether or not the invisible man that you believe in (as described by whatever religious works you have) exists. Indeed, if you actually examine your faith, you will quickly discover that you don't believe in most of what your faith prescribes, that you have only accepted the parts of your religion that agree with your sense of self and culture and rejected the parts that don't. In doing so, you have created your own god that doesn't exist. You are no longer a Christian, Muslin or Jew, you are a religion of "I made up my own god that I'm okay with" religion. When you realize that, you will realize YOU made up god. Therefore, god doesn't exist.
Also, for anyone that might reply with atheism is a religion: If atheism is a religion, bald is a hair color.
Re:imstupid.com (Score:2, Insightful)
To me this is one of the common fallacies that is purported by religious folk: the idea that a God cannot be argued against since it is impossible to prove that he does not exist.
This is true only in a certain limited instance. This instance is only for a god that does not interfere with the world around us and, for all intents and purposes, does not affect it. The Christian god (and the Abrahamic god in general) does not follow this routine. The holy texts of these religions (and the followers themselves) all agree on one thing: God interferes with the day to day lives of his people.
Therefore - the absence of proof that this is the case is proof that the Abrahamic god does not exist. While obviously this cannot be taken as absolute proof against the existence of the god, to say that there is no proof is just as wrong.
This fundamental argument seems to be lost on many that hide behind the lack of "proof" against a god. While one can argue that the god is trying to hide, I find this unlikely. Why would the Abrahamic god try to hide after all of the interference done in the Bible? It is contradictory to the core beliefs of the Abrahamic religions. Ergo, there is strong proof against the existence of the Abrahamic god
Re:What about buddhism? And hinduism? (Score:3, Insightful)
Boo, predictable.
How about, "The quest for answer is suffering. Only when you have stopped searching can you reach enlightment."
Re:Atheist (Score:5, Insightful)
The sun doesn't "come up" ;)
It will, however, appear in the eastern sky due to the rotation of the Earth. There's enough evidence available for me to draw that conclusion. There isn't, however, enough evidence to tell me that there is a being that created everything, could control everything but chooses not to, could see the future but chooses not to, etc.
It's just a targeted sales angle (Score:3, Insightful)
It may even start off with good ideals, but you can bet that after a short period of time that it's just there to shear the flock.
Re:Atheist (Score:4, Insightful)
Every atheist accepts that there is no deity on blind faith and without further investigation.
There have been plenty of investigation: physical experiments, attempts at communication, etc. None of them have ever provided any evidence that God exists. In fact, time and again, properties postulated for God by churches have shown not to be plausible. That is what "X does not exists" means; we apply the same standard to everything else whose non-existence we take as given.
Stating "I know..." about a thing that is, by definition, unknowable, is irrational.
Things that "exist" are observable, and hence knowable, as part of the real world. If something is unknowable in principle, it doesn't exist, by definition.
Re:Atheist (Score:5, Insightful)
You know I'm fed up of this every atheist has blind faith thing...
I, on the hand, have blind faith that theists will continue to offer no evidence for their beliefs. As Mark Twain said, "Faith is believing what you know ain't so."
Re:Atheist (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't be silly.
If that's your definition of agnostic then anybody with half a brain cell is agnostic on absolutely everything.
Even 2+2!=5 depends on a belief that ZFC is consistent.
An atheist is someone who puts belief in gods on the same level as belief in magic and belief in leprechauns.
Tim.
Re:Atheist (Score:3, Insightful)
Stating "I know..." about a thing that is, by definition, unknowable, is irrational. "I don't know...", on the other hand, not so much.
"Is," "is." "is" -- the idiocy of the word haunts me. If it were abolished, human thought might begin to make sense. I don't know what anything "is"; I only know how it seems to me at this moment. - Robert Anton Wilson
Re:imstupid.com (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes they are. Wikipedia sets a standard for NPOV that fundamentalists has no hope of comprehending let alone meeting. So they set up their own wiki which represents some of the nuttiest, illogical, nonsensical and laughably wrong articles you will ever see gathered in one single site. It's the motherlode of stupid.
Re:Atheist (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Atheist (Score:4, Insightful)
Funny how people keep confusing not believing in something with believing something is not.
Re:How Modern Tech Narrows Minds ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Or that tech makes more visible what have always been there? I recall various communities having their own enclaves and news sources as far back as recorded history goes.
Re:Atheist (Score:3, Insightful)
If you were to bother... y'know.. investigating, you would find that a great many atheists arrive at that position following a great deal of investigation. Not scientific empirical experimentation necessarily, but certainly philosophical deliberation based on their studied observations of the world. After confirming that some arbitrarily large number of theist assertions appear to be untrue (e.g. the universe was created ~6000 years ago, God rewards faithfulness, Muhammad is the prophet of Allah), they conclude that the primary assertion of theists (God exists) is also untrue. You might challenge the soundness of their conclusion, but to say that "every atheist" accepts it "on blind faith and without further investigation" is demonstrably false.
Re:Atheist (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with your supposition is that you first create a supernatural world (that which we can not observe) and then label those who do not believe in it.
The fact that you first have to construct a supernatural world, then place beings in it, is what atheists disagree with you on. They do not disagree on your supernatural beings, they disagree with your supernatural world.
If something can be observed there is no reason for belief. If something can not be observed in any way, other than some human being is convinced that something is so, there is no reason for belief. And the only reason someone is labeled an atheist is because the human being who is convinced in the supernatural world wants to put a label on those who do not.
This supernatural world can contain titans, gods, fairies, leprechauns, vampires, magic, etc. Currently, only the people who believe in a supernatural world filled with gods seem to feel a need to label the non-believers. And since this is apparently so important to them, I let them.
If you feel you can not cope with the natural world, and a supernatural one on top of it helps you, you are free to do so. It is when you start asking me to believe in the same supernatural world that you do, that I draw the line. Especially when the asking is done at the point of a sword.
Re:Atheist (Score:3, Insightful)
"then label those who do not believe in it." I do not accept your premise that "I" construct this world.
First of all, it existed long before my birth. Second, Muslims, Christians and Jews believe that the notion of such a world comes from God via Prophets, who have connection with Him.
"they disagree with your supernatural world." I know that, I am just saying that the basis of their disagreement is not scientific.
"If something can be observed there is no reason for belief." I just gave you very reason: religion helps a believer to lead happy life and frees him from anxiety.
"Currently, only the people who believe in a supernatural world filled with gods seem to feel a need to label the non-believers." Well, that is not surprising: they constitute a majority (Christians and Muslims). The pagans, most importantly Buddhists and Hindus are in minority.
"If you feel you can not cope with the natural world" Slide of hand. Your statement lead to presumption that religious people do not cope with all natural world or significant part of phenomena. In fact, religious people cope BETTER than atheists in emotional sphere of natural world because of their belief.
"It is when you start asking me to believe in the same supernatural world that you do, that I draw the line. "
It's your choice.
"Especially when the asking is done at the point of a sword." Muslims do not do that. Qur'an: 2:256:
"There is no compulsion in religion".
What we do with a sword is not forcing others to believe, but to obey the law of Allah, which you can do without believing it. The law of Allah for non-Muslims does not force them to do any of religious activities, like paying obligatory charity, fasting or praying obligatory prayers. In fact, it allows them to practice their own religion.
I do not believe in many American laws, finding them ridiculous and leading to the destruction of society, yet I obey them (I did choose them by voluntarily coming here, but the place I came from had even more stupidity in man made laws).
Re:Atheist (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Here is "some evidence" (Score:2, Insightful)
I am not impressed.
People's lives change (or not) with and without Jesus, with and without Christianity, and with and without religion. It happens in other cultures, it happened thousands of years ago, and will continue to happen long after Christianity is forgotten.
It's not evidence for anything but the fact that people's lives change, with or without catalysts that are or are not objectively real.
The fact that you think your particular belief, and its object, is somehow special is galling arrogance.
Re:Atheist (Score:4, Insightful)
I was raised Episcopal, but figured out a young age that it was kind of bullshit. I mean, the church was basically started so a fat guy could divorce his foreign wife, even though divorce counts as adultery, which violates one of the 10 commandments. Being able to get away with violating a commandment doesn't seem like a good basis for starting a large protestant sect, if you ask me.
That lead me to eventually get to doing a study of Buddhism, particularly Zen. The books I read, largely from people in the Soto sect, just make it seem infinitely practical. I think a lot of people in the West get a sort of Beatles-in-India image of Eastern religions, but what I got out of Zen was that its the quest to be able to see things how they really are.
There is a Zen proverb I remember that goes something like, "Before you study Zen, you see the mountain. While you study Zen, you see the rocks and dirt. When you have mastered Zen, you'll see the mountain again."
I bring this up because it just seems to me that a lot of people get stuck on the "there is no spoon" and think that enlightenment is supposed to bring them to someplace special that looks like Rainbow Unicorn Attack. Really, its about cutting through the bullshit.
A lot of philosophy majors I knew in college were indistinguishable from the kids who would just get high and watch the Matrix. Sometimes they were one in the same. I don't claim to be an enlightened being or a Zen master, but I do think I'm pretty good at cutting through the bullshit and seeing the reality of situations. The world could use a little more of that.
Re:Atheist (Score:4, Insightful)
I see religion as something that had a function in the past when we didn't understand the world around us very well and many things were an "Act of God".
From the seasons, to eclipses to floods, to many other things have been attributed or still are to gods or mythical creatures in the history of mankind. Man is very good in seeing cause and effect in things, even if there is none. I think that is how mysticism and religion came into existence, as a need for mankind to explain phenomena around him that he didn't understand and could not predict. I even think it's what defines us as a species in the sense that we have always tried to figure out cause and effect and then use the knowledge to our advantage to predict the future.
I think over time this simple attempt at explaining the world around us evolved into a way to order our society when we started to live together in larger and larger groups. Successful religions usually seem to do three things: They offer a social structure, they promote procreation and they try to give people control over the unpredictable things in their lives.
If you look at Christianity it's very clear that the current Church is very much based around these three cores.
I think in a way humanity developed religion as an evolutionary survival strategy that has proven highly successful.
Promoting procreation is the most essential. All versions of Christianity that were to averse to this (there were many in the first few centuries), have since died out. This is probably true for other religions as well, but my knowledge is less detailed.
The second thing is offering social structure. From Kings ruling by God given right, to clerical hierarchies to the Ten Commandments. Knowing your place in society, keeping those in power secure and giving rules to judge disputes by are the core of many if not all of the older religions.
The third thing hark back to how I think religion started. People do not cope well with uncertainty. Knowing that if you pray to the gods you will have a good hunt or bountiful harvest makes life predictable. And if things don't turn out well, you must have Sinned, failed to perform a ritual or something like that.
The last thing of course reinforces the previous, as the need for explanation and rules and guidelines helps keep the clergy in power.
Religion is a very powerful tool that humanity used in it's evolution. It is one of the big contributing factors that made us the dominant species on this planet. But I think that it has largely served it's purpose having been replaced by Science, insurance, law and newer forms of government like Democracy.
We now know that spring returns because of the orbit the Earth has around the Sun, not because we sacrifice an animal on midwinter.
Those that defend religion are proof of how powerful a mechanism it is and how good it is at defending itself and surviving. But they are defending something that is entirely constructed by man itself with no actual supernatural beings, powers or world existing. It has helped humanity survive and evolve but it's no longer needed, we now have better ways to organise ourselves and explain the world around us.
Re:imstupid.com (Score:5, Insightful)
They're absolutely right, there's no proof that god doesn't exist.
Having worked on experiments that helped prove the non-existence of specific particles (the 17 keV neutrino and the non-existent axion that hovered ephemerallhy in the wings of heavy ion experiments in the late '80's) I find this whole arguement bizarre in the extreme. Anyone who uses it on either side of the god debate is simplyh declaring their absolute ignorance of how science--which disproves the existence of things all the time--actually works.
The basic method is simple: if X exists, then under circumstances Y phenomenon Z will occur.
We then create circumstances Y and see if Z occurs. For bonus points we demonstrate our sensitivity to Z with various calibrations.
We do this all the time, both in the lab and in ordinary life. Whenever we do it with regard to anything other than god, no one takes any exception to it, and rightly so because it is an entirely unexceptionable procedure.
When we apply this perfectly ordinary procedure to "god" a bunch of wingnuts start equivocating between "evidence" (which is all we ever have in science) and "proof" (which is the exclusive concern of a very small number of extremely up-tight mathematicians.) And unfortunately a number of purpoted atheists don't call them on this.
Re:Atheist (Score:5, Insightful)
Anybody who uses "outside the domain of science" to describe anything doesn't understand what science is. If there is a god, and it has any sort of measurable effect on the universe then it is within the domain of science. Because we can measure its effects. We can test various religions' prayers to see if they get answered at a rate different from chance.
We can compare various religions creation myths against what we know about the nature of reality.
Lots of things can be tested scientifically. If you give us a solid, meaningful definition of "god" then we can probably define a test for it.
Re:No results necessary (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Walk along the bed of the Red sea. (Score:2, Insightful)
You cannot test that the red sea was parted millennia ago by walking through it today. Otherwise I'll prove the Pangaea claim wrong by not being able to go from Australia to Europe without crossing the ocean.
Re:Atheist (Score:4, Insightful)
Aren't you mixing duality and theism? Duality deals with an assumed distinction between body and mind (-> Descartes). Theism is a belief in magical superheroes. The one does not imply the other. Even if you were to convince me of dualism, that doesn't imply the existence of a god.
Anyway, there are some serious objections to dualism. If there is an immortal soul, there should be a mechanism by which it connects to your brain. How else can your soul perceive what your senses feel? So the claim you thought was so safe from science is suddenly under siege. Dualism, since it interacts with reality, should be testable.
In fact, the current data all points into the direction that the mind is what the brain does. This explains neurological disorders quite well. In fact, you can be a kind, honest, gentle person, but if I were to remove a specific, small part of your brain, you would become a lying, cheating son of a bitch. So if you have the misfortune of a hemorrhage and you become a bad person, after you die you get punished in the afterlife as well?
So yes, you can try to convince some atheists using those arguments, but it won't work on me. I ask too many questions.
Re:Atheist (Score:5, Insightful)
What about god? What observation tells us that he does not exist? Well, we haven't seen him, and nobody we know has seen him, but given his scope, he could be literally anywhere, in (or even outside) an extremely expansive universe. We haven't found any gods occurring naturally in the universe, but then again, the god that is claimed to exist by christians isn't exactly claimed to be common.
What about Space Unicorns [urbandictionary.com]? What observation tells us that they do not exist? Well, we haven't seen them, and nobody we know has seen them, but given their scope, they could be literally anywhere, in (or even outside) an extremely expansive universe. We haven't found any Space Unicorns occurring naturally in the universe, but then again, the Space Unicorn that is claimed to exist by believers isn't exactly claimed to be common.
What about Thetans [wikipedia.org]? What observation tells us that they do not exist? Well, we haven't seen them, and nobody we know has seen them, but given their scope, they could be literally anywhere, in (or even outside) an extremely expansive universe. We haven't found any Thetans occurring naturally in the universe, but then again, the Thetans that are claimed to exist by Scientologists aren't exactly claimed to be common.
What about ghosts [wikipedia.org]? What observation tells us that they do not exist? ......
What about Flying Spaghetti Monsters [wikipedia.org]? Or Norse Gods [wikipedia.org]? Or Mbaba Mwana Waresa [wikipedia.org]? What observation tells us that they do not exist? ...... ....(This could go on forever)....
Re:imstupid.com (Score:5, Insightful)
So you would advocate the teaching of Intelligent Design?
Not in the least. However, I advocate discussing Intelligent Design. By showing kids how a scientific theory works in contrast to some made-up bullshit they would learn much better which is which. I would definitely confront them with the shit and let them rip it apart, applying the knowledge they have acquired until that point.
Opposing views can remain just that. I never said you should give all possible views equal credit or even just time. But what you shouldn't do is filter them out entirely, pretend that they don't exist, and set up a fantasy world around yourself where nothing critical or no other opinion even exists.
It is by challenge that we find out if our opinions have merit.
Re:Atheist (Score:3, Insightful)
I was fairly careful to define 'god' as an involved creator.
If by 'creator', you just mean 'the next level of physics that we hope to eventually discover which explains things a bit better', then I'm quite happy to agree that a creator exists.
I'm not going to pray to it though, or expect it to take any personal interest in my life.
Re:Atheist (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Censorship vs Focus (Score:3, Insightful)
That will only happen if someone is forced to use a religious search engine, but disallowed from using others.
That is assuming that the "someone" knows it is censored.
Vivismo's Clusty metasearch was bought out and renamed Yippy (http://search.yippy.com/). I used it for a couple of days before realizing it was filtering the search results. The only reason I found out the search was censored was that I ran a search where I knew what the results should have been. When I went searching for a search mode that would return accurate results, I eventually found the "Censorship" page (http://search.yippy.com/censorship), two clicks down, where they stated what they were filtering (based on their political and religious views.)
The front page should have linked to the censorship policy, or at least should include a notice that it is a "conservative, Christian, family-friendly search engine." Unfortunately, the front page is a generic search box, with no indication of what it does.
I can't make a choice if they are not open about their activities.
Re:imstupid.com (Score:3, Insightful)
Because of what? Me calling a debunked propaganda theory what it is?
Pick another example if you want a neutral opinion. Being honest does not mean being nice or even neutral about everything, and neither does being rational, scientific, etc.. The verdict is in on ID, and it is precisely by not dancing around the fire but saying out clearly that what it is, that we are being honest.
Re:imstupid.com (Score:3, Insightful)
Am I missing a few steps in this conversation? I think you lost me at the turn where you started talking about right and wrong without offering any evidence that would make a reader think twice about the general knowledge.