Censoring is a popular activity among groups having their own beliefs, but are troubled by what the science reveals. I wrote about it in the Hypathia article, and among other countries the country of freedom, USA, did their best to prevent the film to be shown.
They, USA, have their Christian right (opposite of left). They are very concerned about the evolution theory and tries by all means to stop it and other scientific proved issues. Here are three of their atempts.
Creationistic science books
In the US there are approved to educate the children at home, or put them in religious schools. There are not much controll of the home education and the religious schools are not controlled as hard as in Sweden (I have worked in a muslim school in Sweden...I did teach about the real evolution and about the sexuallity. No problems). There are even school books written in pure creationistic views, harming the children by not letting them see what others believe. Thank God (?) there exists people like the one who writes the blogg 11 points to make others be aware of what is happening. It is dangerous, and 45 seconds into this video you'll see the result.
Intelligent design equal to the evolution
In 2005 the Kansas state board of education tried to discredit the evolution by introducing the ID:s teaching method. One student at the Oregon state University, Bobby Henderson, wrote an open letter to the board saying he wanted to have equal time for his religion too. Noone had ever heard of The Church of the Flying Spaghetti monster, and the board did not answer. Bobby published the letter on the net, and it became a success! The board lost the case. Thanks Bobby!
SOPA
SOPA is, according to what they write, something to protect copywrite materials. As it works it also helps the christian right to be able to use the SOPA-law to try to stop web pages with materials they do not like. Wikipedia for instans will probably be one of the first pages to be closed. Even other pages that are not having any illegal materials on it will maybe be forced to closed just because they links to a page with illegal materials, according to Lennart Guldbrandsson (Swedish link) on the Swedish Wikimedia. As a result of this, and to try to succeed as good as Bobby and 11 points did, the english Wikipedia will have a total blackout 18th of January to show what will come if we let the US censor the internet. Here are the English wikimedia explanation.
What is a little bit confusing is why the US where talking about "Freedom of speech" during the Arabian spring", while themselves tries to stop those rights.
Lets hope our army of scientists and people searching for the truth will be able to stop this and make the world enter a new era. I think of Richard Dawkins (evolution), Simon Singh (fighting against the chiropractics) and VOF (Swedish sceptics) and many more.
Showing posts with label censorship. Show all posts
Showing posts with label censorship. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Wikipedia soon closing down?
Once again wikipedia (and also youtube etc) are at risk for closing down due to some silly law... It is the SOPA-law that might harm a free internet.
Right now the different wikipedia-languages are discussing to close down for a while to show the US what might be the aftermatch for implementing this law. (But it seems like it will only be the English closing and maybe the rest showing there support by writing on a banner or something like that. What will happen in the different wiki's are something they decide and I can not check on everyone)
Some people might think it is right... "Just close every web-page that contains illegal things, (copywright)". Well is it so easy? In Sweden we have a law saying that if an author died for more than 70 years ago his/hers books are public domain and free to publish! Great, we have project Runeberg working hard to publish old litterature and newspapers from the nordic countries. Here is the problem: According to a law in the US are material like that protected for 95 years... making a lot of wikipedia articles and very much of project Runebergs material illegal in the US (country of freedom?)!!! For example the Swedish writer Selma Lagerlöf.
Sweden are then illegal and they will have to close webpages linking to these free online-sorces...
That was just an example to show how harmfull this new law might be for the world. The government in the US are the multinational companies little pet doing everything they say to get a small piece of the money-cookie. We in the rest of the world can't stop it, but I hope the thinking people in the US will do something and not just let the brainwash proceed (why am I not surprised THAT link to an article on wikipedia is dealing with matters in the United States?).
Right now the different wikipedia-languages are discussing to close down for a while to show the US what might be the aftermatch for implementing this law. (But it seems like it will only be the English closing and maybe the rest showing there support by writing on a banner or something like that. What will happen in the different wiki's are something they decide and I can not check on everyone)
Some people might think it is right... "Just close every web-page that contains illegal things, (copywright)". Well is it so easy? In Sweden we have a law saying that if an author died for more than 70 years ago his/hers books are public domain and free to publish! Great, we have project Runeberg working hard to publish old litterature and newspapers from the nordic countries. Here is the problem: According to a law in the US are material like that protected for 95 years... making a lot of wikipedia articles and very much of project Runebergs material illegal in the US (country of freedom?)!!! For example the Swedish writer Selma Lagerlöf.
Sweden are then illegal and they will have to close webpages linking to these free online-sorces...
That was just an example to show how harmfull this new law might be for the world. The government in the US are the multinational companies little pet doing everything they say to get a small piece of the money-cookie. We in the rest of the world can't stop it, but I hope the thinking people in the US will do something and not just let the brainwash proceed (why am I not surprised THAT link to an article on wikipedia is dealing with matters in the United States?).
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Hypatia- Christian censorship victime
Old news
Hypatia was murdered by christian monks in a riot in Alexandria year 415. She was working in the Library of Alexandria until the pope Theophilus ordered it's destruction, he is now a saint in the coptic church. When the pope died Cyril became pope after his uncle. He ordered massacres of jews and pagans, and where in a conflict with the roman prefect, how had Hypatia as his advisor and philosophy teacher. That made Cyril trying to get her out of the way by all means, until he started a small riot so that monks attacked Hypatia on her way home, stripped her naked and dragged her through the city to a Christian tempel were they skinned her with tiles and then cut her body in parts. Finally they burnt her body. Cyril is a saint in most of the Christian churches, and one of the church fathers according to the Catholics.
That's history and fact, but how does that affect us?
2009 a great epic Spanish movie, Agora, went in the cinemas in most European countries telling this story, and it became the most visited spanish movie in Spain that year.. It was broadcasted in Swedish television this week. When the end of the movie came with the death of Hypatia (not showing all the cruellity made by the monks), my beloved one cried out load in the sofa next to me. She could not understand why and how, and she is a student of theology and christian history- knowing her subjects.
Censorship
In Spain the catholic defens group Observatorio Antidifamación Religiosa wrote an open letter how the movie where raising hatred against Christianity and reinforcing false clichés about the Catholic church. When the director Amenábar responded that he wanted to say the movie was against those who kill in the name of their god the group responded "Why didn't you make a movie about the Middle East (the muslims they ment)?". Hey are we supposed to hide the truth here? That is facts, written by christian bishops during the time it happened.
In the US they did not want to buy the movie claiming it "was to intellectual and heavy". A silly claim. making US citizens look stupid by their own leaders (I know that is not true, not my friends there anyway...) The real reason seems to be the religious causes too. The companies where affraid to buy it, making the right fanatics of christianity in the US angry, and then loosing a lot of money. Maximum of theatres showing the movie duing a weekend in 2010 (the year they showed it there after a year of censorship) was 17. Only 17 in all of the US of A! What a terrible shame.
The coptic church, what did they do? Well, they stopped the movie from being shown in Egypt and poor Hypatias hometown Alexandria by claiming it "is an insult of the religion". Of course they say so, their saints real faces would be shown for the masses, scary to show that even christians have killed lika that?
School
I lika Hypatia. I use to show her as a good example, while teaching, of a woman scientist struggling because her sex, but being one of the best. She and Marie Curie will help the girls to find good examples that they are as good, or better, than the boys. That girls are ment to study math and science too!!!
May Hypatia not be a brick in a religios fight about a religion she did not even believe in. She believed in philosophy!
Hypatia was murdered by christian monks in a riot in Alexandria year 415. She was working in the Library of Alexandria until the pope Theophilus ordered it's destruction, he is now a saint in the coptic church. When the pope died Cyril became pope after his uncle. He ordered massacres of jews and pagans, and where in a conflict with the roman prefect, how had Hypatia as his advisor and philosophy teacher. That made Cyril trying to get her out of the way by all means, until he started a small riot so that monks attacked Hypatia on her way home, stripped her naked and dragged her through the city to a Christian tempel were they skinned her with tiles and then cut her body in parts. Finally they burnt her body. Cyril is a saint in most of the Christian churches, and one of the church fathers according to the Catholics.
That's history and fact, but how does that affect us?
2009 a great epic Spanish movie, Agora, went in the cinemas in most European countries telling this story, and it became the most visited spanish movie in Spain that year.. It was broadcasted in Swedish television this week. When the end of the movie came with the death of Hypatia (not showing all the cruellity made by the monks), my beloved one cried out load in the sofa next to me. She could not understand why and how, and she is a student of theology and christian history- knowing her subjects.
Censorship
In Spain the catholic defens group Observatorio Antidifamación Religiosa wrote an open letter how the movie where raising hatred against Christianity and reinforcing false clichés about the Catholic church. When the director Amenábar responded that he wanted to say the movie was against those who kill in the name of their god the group responded "Why didn't you make a movie about the Middle East (the muslims they ment)?". Hey are we supposed to hide the truth here? That is facts, written by christian bishops during the time it happened.
In the US they did not want to buy the movie claiming it "was to intellectual and heavy". A silly claim. making US citizens look stupid by their own leaders (I know that is not true, not my friends there anyway...) The real reason seems to be the religious causes too. The companies where affraid to buy it, making the right fanatics of christianity in the US angry, and then loosing a lot of money. Maximum of theatres showing the movie duing a weekend in 2010 (the year they showed it there after a year of censorship) was 17. Only 17 in all of the US of A! What a terrible shame.
The coptic church, what did they do? Well, they stopped the movie from being shown in Egypt and poor Hypatias hometown Alexandria by claiming it "is an insult of the religion". Of course they say so, their saints real faces would be shown for the masses, scary to show that even christians have killed lika that?
School
I lika Hypatia. I use to show her as a good example, while teaching, of a woman scientist struggling because her sex, but being one of the best. She and Marie Curie will help the girls to find good examples that they are as good, or better, than the boys. That girls are ment to study math and science too!!!
May Hypatia not be a brick in a religios fight about a religion she did not even believe in. She believed in philosophy!
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