The Advent of Religious Search Engines

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The Advent of Religious Search Engines

Posted by Soulskill on Monday September 13, 2010 @09:16PM from the finding-god-with-seo dept.

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)."

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Atheist by nacturation · 2010-09-13 21:17 · Score: 5, Funny

http://www.atheistsearch.net/
Search: creationism
[Click "I'm Feeling Lucky"]
Error: there's no such thing as luck!

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1. Re:Atheist by maxwell+demon · 2010-09-13 22:06 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Atheists believe in the power of citations. :-)
  
  --
  The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
2. Re:Atheist by Xtifr · 2010-09-13 22:31 · 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.
3. Re:Atheist by rainmouse · 2010-09-13 22:44 · 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?
4. Re:Atheist by ConfusedVorlon · 2010-09-13 22:44 · 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.
  
  --
  VLC Remote for iPhone and Android
5. Re:Atheist by Anonymous Coward · 2010-09-13 22:47 · 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.
6. Re:Atheist by nschubach · 2010-09-13 23:00 · Score: 4, 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.
  
  --
  Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
7. Re:Atheist by yyxx · 2010-09-13 23:05 · Score: 3, 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.
8. Re:Atheist by paiute · 2010-09-13 23:21 · Score: 4, 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."
  
  --
  If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
9. Re:Atheist by locofungus · 2010-09-13 23:24 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  ...Many atheists are simply skeptics who refuse to accept the existence of the Gods unless you provide irrefutable proof.
  This describes agnosticism, which is a vastly different thing than an atheism, what the individuals choose to call themselves notwithstanding.
  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.
  
  --
  God said, "div D = rho, div B = 0, curl E = -@B/@t, curl H = J + @D/@t," and there was light.
10. Re:Atheist by Anne_Nonymous · 2010-09-13 23:24 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  >> there is no Santa Claus, no Easter Bunny and no Tooth Fairy.
  You jackass, how about putting --SPOILER ALERT-- in your title. Thanks for ruining my life.
11. Re:Atheist by Unipuma · 2010-09-14 00:11 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Funny how people keep confusing not believing in something with believing something is not.
12. Re:Atheist by geckipede · 2010-09-14 00:26 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Bertrand Russell got there first with that analogy, Dawkins didn't come up with it. It's fairly famous under the name "Russell's Teapot."
13. Re:Atheist by Unipuma · 2010-09-14 00:36 · Score: 4, 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.
14. Re:Atheist by bsDaemon · 2010-09-14 01:34 · Score: 3, 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.
15. Re:Atheist by RogerWilco · 2010-09-14 01:56 · Score: 3, 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.
  
  --
  RogerWilco the Adventurous Janitor
16. Re:Atheist by easterberry · 2010-09-14 02:08 · Score: 4, 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.
17. Re:Atheist by Solandri · 2010-09-14 02:56 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  what evidence is there that the world turns
  A Foucault pendulum. It's only translational reference frames which have no absolute reference (if you and someone else are moving apart at constant direction and speed, you can't tell who is standing still and who is moving, or if both are moving). It's fairly easy to distinguish a rotating reference frame from a non-rotating one since rotation generates phantom centrifugal "forces" (consequently there is only one single absolute, universal non-rotating reference frame). These "forces" are what make a Foucault pendulum appear to rotate.
18. Re:Atheist by Mr2cents · 2010-09-14 03:09 · Score: 3, 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.
  
  --
  "It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
19. Re:Atheist by chrb · 2010-09-14 03:10 · 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? 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? 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? What observation tells us that they do not exist? ......
  What about Flying Spaghetti Monsters? Or Norse Gods? Or Mbaba Mwana Waresa? What observation tells us that they do not exist? ...... ....(This could go on forever)....
How Modern Tech Narrows Minds ... by foobsr · 2010-09-13 21:26 · Score: 3, 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.

--
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
1. Re:How Modern Tech Narrows Minds ... by somersault · 2010-09-13 22:07 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  More like how narrow minds abuse modern tech.
  
  --
  which is totally what she said
Vertical search is fairly old by williamhb · 2010-09-13 21:42 · Score: 5, Insightful

There have been "vertical search engines" that only search within particular fields for a very long time now -- everything from cars to plumbing. Not sure how newsworthy it is that there are also ones for Christian and Muslim theology. Rather useful if you're looking up material to help you write a sermon, bible study, or for use in your own bible reading. There are also religious bookshops, selling religious books. So what a surprise that if there's a lot of written material around, someone's made a search engine for it. In other shocking news, there is a search engine exclusively for knitting. Clearly its users must only believe in woollen dinosaurs!
So one might say... by pi8you · 2010-09-13 21:46 · Score: 5, Funny

they're using Church Engines?
1. Re:So one might say... by maxwell+demon · 2010-09-13 21:52 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  they're using Church Engines?
  Do those use Church numerals for calculating the page rank?
  
  --
  The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
stupid people by chichilalescu · 2010-09-13 21:48 · 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.

--
new sig
Seekfind is down by L4t3r4lu5 · 2010-09-13 21:54 · Score: 3, Funny

Guess I won't be able to find God after all.

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Search engine for true believer by noidentity · 2010-09-13 21:57 · Score: 5, Funny

Bah, the search engine of a true believer would be to type in a random IP address and rely on the hand of God to ensure it's the very one you're looking for.
imstupid.com by yyxx · 2010-09-13 22:04 · Score: 5, Funny

First link for "atheism" points to Conservapedia, which says:

Unlike Christianity, which is supported by a large body of sound evidence (see: Christian apologetics), atheism has no proof and evidence supporting its ideology.
If you were a comedian, you couldn't come up with something better than that. Are these people really that stupid?
1. Re:imstupid.com by Spad · 2010-09-13 22:36 · Score: 3, 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.
2. Re:imstupid.com by DrXym · 2010-09-13 23:52 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  If you were a comedian, you couldn't come up with something better than that. Are these people really that stupid?
  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.
3. Re:imstupid.com by Tom · 2010-09-14 00:07 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  If you were a comedian, you couldn't come up with something better than that. Are these people really that stupid?
  Yes, they are. And one of the reasons they are is that they filter out evidence to the contrary. Having their own search engines just reduces the mental load, but one key point of all religious teaching is that you know the truth and everything contradicting it is false and/or a temptation by the devil (or whatever your equivalent is). So you train in filtering it out mentally. Having your computer do it for you is only the next logical step.
  But without opposing views, your chosen view of the world gets ever stronger and - over time - ever more absurd. Do it long enough and you lose touch with reality entirely and start to believe in... I don't know, gods or some such nonsense.
  
  --
  Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
4. Re:imstupid.com by radtea · 2010-09-14 02:00 · Score: 4, 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.
  
  --
  Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
5. Re:imstupid.com by Tom · 2010-09-14 03:29 · Score: 4, 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.
  
  --
  Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Re:How customizable is it? by somersault · 2010-09-13 22:10 · Score: 5, Funny

Pah. Real Christians just use prayer for all their search needs.

--
which is totally what she said
"Server Error in '/' Application." by elronxenu · 2010-09-13 23:10 · Score: 3, Funny

Description: An application error occurred on the server. The current custom error settings for this application prevent the details of the application error from being viewed remotely (for security reasons). It could, however, be viewed by browsers running on the local server machine.
Your God is not so powerful now, is he??
Thoughts on Seekfind from a Christian perspective by Micah · 2010-09-13 23:17 · Score: 5, Interesting

(Based on its static pages. Haven't been able to search yet.)
A while ago I saw another Christian general search engine (I forget the URL). I tried a few searches on it, and it was absolutely pathetic. The results could not have been less relevant if they tried! That is deeply disturbing to me, as I believe that we as Christians should should aim for excellence in all that we do.
It looks like this Seekfind will be different in that it doesn't aim to be a general search engine. I could see some value in that, if you're looking for thoughts on specific Bible passages or whatnot from a Christian perspective. I suspect that users who use Seekfind for that would have no trouble using Google for everything else, so there is no need to claim that they are "sheltered".
However, what disturbs me about Seekfind is its apparent narrowness in what they deem as "Christian-enough." Apparently they will not index sites that describe end-times from an amillennial perspective -- which is the most widely held view in all of Christendom (not American fundamentalism), and they won't consider infant baptism (as we in the Presbyterian Church do) or even believers' baptism by sprinkling. What the? It would be much more valuable if I could find commentaries from various Christian perspectives.
I'm looking forward to searching them for creation apologist material. From a comment above it looks like they only cover the young earth think tanks. I bet there won't be any results from reasons.org, which IMHO has a much saner interpretation of Creation (they argue that the Big Bang is fully compatible with a literal reading of the Bible).
Re:As an atheist... by mastropiero · 2010-09-14 00:11 · Score: 3, Interesting

They are not mutually exclusive.
(A)gnosticism refers to what you know, and (a)theism refers what you believe in terms of gods. They are two independent dimensions. Think cartesian plane with one axis for theism and the other for gnosticism. You can be an agnostic atheist, a gnostic theist or everything in between. Gnostic atheists are hard to come by, but many gnostic theists are pretty loud about it.
Re:Censorship vs Focus by darnkitten · 2010-09-14 04:09 · 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.