[WikiEN-l] Just to throw this out there...

[Toby Bartels]

LittleDan wrote:

>Toby Bartels wrote:

>>LouI wrote:

>>>This is a very slippery kind of concept, sort of like the
>>>difference between 'freedom OF religion' and 'freedom FROM religion'.

>>I don't understand the analogy;
>>it might help if I knew your opinion on freedom from religion,
>>since as it is I can't even tell which way you go on that!

>Freedom from religion is the censorship of pagan
>religions (even though there is really nothing wrong
>with them), accused cults, "destructive" faiths like
>some fundimentalist Islam, and otherwise "barbaric"
>religions. Some say that these religions do not lead
>to anything constructive and just destroy things. I
>don't believe in it, but we must acknowledge that many
>do.

Interesting.  I've *never* heard the term used this way.
OTC, it's the fundamentalist Christians that *oppose* the concept,
because it means (when I've seen it) the freedom of atheist types
to avoid even nondenominational references to "God" etc
by the government in the United States.
The religious right claims that they have no such right,
since the Consitution says only "of", not "from".
The secular left responds that "freedom from" is part of "freedom of".

>Since this POV is held almost exclusively by
>Fundimentalist Christians, I suggest that we use their
>POV about what should be blocked. I'm just trying to
>be realistic here; if we blocked [[christianity]],
>that may be more NPOV, but not practical for the
>dominant wetern world. Remember: this filter is only
>optional. It is not forced on anyone.

If the filter is found on Edupedia rather than Wikipedia directly,
then I won't oppose this decision, since I won't be making it.
But here on Wikipedia, a labelling category
that covers Islam and paganism but not Christianity
would get into a lot of trouble. ^_^
(This isn't an argument against LittleDan,
who seems to like Edupedia.)


-- Toby