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Early this month, MySpace again deleted the Atheist and Agnostic Group (35,000 members). This deletion, due largely to complaints from people who find atheism offensive, marks the second time MySpace has cancelled the group since November 2007.
“MySpace refuses to undelete the group, although it never violated any terms of service,” said Bryan Pesta, Ph.D., the group’s moderator. “When the largest Christian group was hacked, MySpace’s Founder, Tom Anderson, personally restored the group, and promised to protect it from future deletions.”
It’s interesting to note that the Wikipedia entry for this group is being considered for deletion.
I’d really like to hear the other side of this, but I don’t see one. What reasoning is MySpace giving for the deletion? It would be hard for me to believe it was just because they were atheists and agnostics. I’m personally a man of faith…but it makes me wonder what’s next. All of a sudden they don’t like Jews, Muslims, Wiccans et. al. and get rid of their pages too?
I mean, MySpace doesn’t seem all that Christian in the first place…why would they care about atheists or agnostics?
Myspace has jumped the shark. Moves like this just accelerate and confirm the fact.
The people in the group should delete their accounts in protest and go somewhere else.
There a lot of atheists on the net. If they can develop a taste for organization they could begin to wield political power.
Maybe God “smote” their creepy little group… 🙂
Maybe someone should delete MySpace. Seriously. Just take the site out (and be done with it).
There is no god.
what is your source for automatically assuming that a Christian group or protest resulted in this? The article only tangentially addresses Christianity.
(Sadly) the most outspoken people in the world about their religion are Muslims. Only, instead of sending missionaries abroad to proclaim their message, they send suicide bombers.
Nice, lets deflect a postulation that their site is managed by a Christian nut(s) and instead turn and reflect upon the wrongs of Islam.
Nevermind, they aren’t the ones who ring my doorbell at 7am or surround the area with papers on how nonbelievers will go to hell during the great judgment (yes, general assumptions). If you ask me, that is emotional terrorism.
MySpace… the digital version of a garbage dump.
#6 Brian: “they send suicide bombers”
Who are “they”? Muslims? All of them?
Since you opened the door to straw man comparisons: missionaries aren’t so great either. They just use “logic bombs” which short-circuit the rational parts of the brain. Plus, they destroy the few viable indigenous cultures left.
Just goes to show how the religious nut jobs trample on freedom. Look at what W is doing with the Constitution. We are only free as long as we believe and obey.
#6 Actually, if you use this site as an example, I’d argue that atheists are the most vocal about their religion.
The problem is that atheism is not a religion.
#12 Replace the word “religion” with “belief system” it doesn’t matter to me. But as far as most of the atheists I’ve met and virtually all of the atheists that post here they take believe in their atheism religiously so if I choose to call it a religion I am free to.
How does an atheist discussion group work?
Atheist #1: I don’t believe in God.
Atheist #2: I agree.
End of discussion.
I don’t know about others, but I don’t call my atheism a religion. Only the weak need a religion.
Semantic word play can be fun. It still doesn’t take away from the issue though that Atheism is neither a religion, nor a system of beliefs. It is simply a group of people who actually choose not to believe in a higher authority that has a defined consciousness. I don’t believe this set of so-called beliefs has a unifying factor in it.
That said, you are free to call atheism a religion if you want to. Just like a person who is an atheist could refer to all Christians as cannibals because they consume the body of Christ (word play can be fun).
Religion: Belief System. No data.
Atheism: Conviction based on an over-abundance of peer reviewed empirical data.
The group is back up again apparently.
#17
Choosing that small slice of peer reviewed empirical data that supports your beliefs = religion, whether that religion is a belief in God or a non belief in God.
your legs are stupid!
I think I just found a reason to sign up to myspace.
When something has no evidence to prove its existence, it is not a “belief system” to not believe in it. It’s rationality.
#16–Jeff==you are getting pretty close. You say “Atheism is neither a religion, nor a system of beliefs. It is simply a group of people who actually choose not to believe in a higher authority that has a defined consciousness.”
Atheism is not a “group.” With only rare occasion, people with this approach to the world do not meet to “understand” what they believe or to get others to join them. It is an isolated characteristic among many others which together make us all human.
The “atheism is religion” debate has much more substance to it than a casual glance might indicate==ie==just how well do you think?
Issue is that “everything” has something in common with just about anything else==and humans are very adept at seeing similarities or patterns, even when they don’t exist. To be a complete thinker, one has to also evaluate the DIFFERENCES. An to excell, one must compare the nature of the similarities with the nature of the differences. Very hard for many people to do. One failure of this necessary analysis is to conclude that atheism is a religion. That just shows a complete failure to udnertake the “differences” analysis.
Notwithstanding the above, I wonder if a lawsuit claiming religious discrimination could go forward or not? I think “the law” defines atheism as a religion in some contexts but not all. Leave it for the lawyers.
Religious – imaginary friends
Atheist – no imaginary friends
I wish myspace would delete itself.
I’m agnostic about atheism.
I love the symbolism of an atheist group being killed off, and subsequently resurrected.
The MySpace atheist/agnostic group lives! We should probably organize some sort of annual ritual marking the anniversary of this momentous occasion 😉
#26–Gary==very telling link. They say:
“We are an “Atheist group about nothing”. Our goal is social networking, though feel free to discuss serious stuff too.
I owe someone at Myspace a thanks for restoring the group, but at the risk of pushing my luck, unbanning the regulars would be really cool too…..”
So unfocused that atheism really isn’t a subject to “worship” over==very unreligious characteristic.
And members got deleted for posting in this group? That seems like additional overkill.
Freedom of thought and speech. A tough nut who think freedom to practice their religion means no one else is allowed to disagree.
#2 – julieb
“There a lot of atheists on the net. If they can develop a taste for organization they could begin to wield political power.”
Let me share a little-realized fact of social psychology. Conformity is inversely correlated with intelligence.
This is why mobs do such horrible things. It’s simple to organize stupid people. Subtlety is not required and since stupid people tend to get the same things wrong, the simpler the message, the more popular.
People of above-average intelligence tend to be considerably more individualistic – and to see matters in finer detail, which leads to disagreement among would-be group members and splitting-off which tends toward each viewpoint having a following of fewer and fewer members.
Atheists are most usually of significantly higher than average intelligence; hence a much larger number of much smaller groups than religions can muster via groupthink that is acceptable to the masses of the less-intelligent.
So, a relatively few huge, monolithic, lowest-common-denominator religions will always be better organized and more influential than a relative multiplicity of less popular, more rational and individualistic schools of thought.
So, at the average intelligence level, a few large, simple fairytales with millions of sheep following complacently. Among the more-intelligent minority, more reasoning, therefore more diverging viewpoints and far fewer people sharing each one.
.: Your suggestion is hopeless. Them as is smart enough to resist being sheeple will refuse to be herded. Sorry. 🙁
#18 – Lives in Reality (riiiiight…)
“Choosing that small slice of peer reviewed empirical data that supports your beliefs = religion, whether that religion is a belief in God or a non belief in God.”
Very nice. Very well put. A wonderful argument if we all simply agree to overlook one teensy problem.
Exactly zero “peer-reviewed empirical data” (that concept’s a hoot itself) exists to support a belief in God or any other supernatural phenomenon you might choose.
By an extremely conservative estimate, far, far in excess of one billion years of human life have been spent looking for one single, solitary subatomic particle of evidence that any “god” exists, with no success of any sort, at any time ever.
This tells any rational person that the odds against there actually being such an entity are very close to ∞ – 1 to 1.
A pretty safe bet.
3HC–bravo, nice set of posts.
Only because you are off by orders of magnitude, most experts put homo sapiens first appearing at most about 500K years ago? And I think it is fair to say for the first few years (order of magnitude error there for humor?) we did not search for creator gods?
Otherwise, Post #28 made my copy and paste file for future pilfering. Well done.