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November 23, 2006

Now science is 'the occult', too

by Feòrag

United Kingdom: It's long been noticed that censorware used to limit internet access seems to reflect the subjective opinions of (often religious) company owners, and their tendency to block sites on feminism, religions other than evangelical Christianity, and lgbt issues. Has a correspondent to New Scientist's Feedback column fallen victim to more religious censorship?

HAVE creationists seized control of the UK's net filters? After buying Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion, Eliot Attridge thought it worth visiting Dawkins's website from the school where he works.

Unfortunately, the school has installed a net filter called Netsweeper which, Attridge discovered, blocks access to www.richarddawkins.net on the grounds that it is an occult site.

Amazed - as Dawkins is possibly the man least likely to be a proponent of occultism - Attridge decided to check his rating with another net filter called Sonicwall. This described Dawkins's site as religious, a categorisation Dawkins would probably find even more disturbing than the occult one. It all looks very suspicious.

Feedback: Richard Dawkins and the occultNew Scientist, 25th November 2006.

Posted in Science Fiction at 15:35. Last modified on December 01 2006 at 03:43.
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Comments

1: Posted by: beepbeepitsme | November 27, 2006 1:14 AM

They like to play the "you too" informal fallacy which goes something like this.

If we are occult, then you are too.

If we are religious then you are too.

They, theists, do this in hope that it will muddy the water about what should be taken seriously.

They also hope that by doing this, that it will somehow validate their own nonsensical claims.

Wax lyrical

Evangelism, witnessing and similar activitites go by one name here—advertising, and is no different from spam for viagra, penis enlargement products and pornography. We do not take advertising. If you want to advertise your imaginary friend, please spend your own money on your own web space to do so. Any attempts to use the comments section for advertisements will be deleted, and the perpetrator barred, unless they are particularly stupid, in which case I reserve the right to pinch an idea from Teresa Nielsen Hayden and delete all the vowels.

This is not a contacts site. If you are looking for help regarding a particular path, I suggest The Witches' Voice, which does operate a contacts service.

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