Agnosticism / Atheism: Comment of the Week: Restricting Access to Information

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Comment of the Week: Restricting Access to Information Oct 18th 2011, 08:00 The broader your access to information and diverse points of view, the harder it is for authoritarian forces to ensure that you hold on to the one point of view that the authoritarians favor. This is why authoritarian forces always try to limit the flow and diversity of available information, one way or another. Even when you think you have access to a lot of information, you may not -- sometimes diversity is only superficial. Joel writes: In my childhood, my mother was very restrictive, not only with new technology, but with the technology we had as well. TV was restricted, even though we just had the basic channels (Cable was considered 'demonic'.) Christian radio was the only thing playing in the car on road trips, and to top it off, my mum didn't get a smartphone until this past June. It seems as if theists' reluctance to new technology may very well lie with the belief that new technology (especially media) may open a Pandora's box to content that goes against their theistic beliefs. [original post] Josh McDowell admitted recently that greater information -- especially information on the internet -- leads to greater skepticism and that, in turn, threatens Christianity. But the internet certainly isn't the only place people have been able to discover new ideas and new points of view. Radio has served that function, especially if your situation was especially narrow. At the same time, though, fundamentalists have not hesitated to adopt new technology for communication and spreading information when it's served their own purposes. Fundamentalists adopted radio for spreading their sermons at a very early date and they can still be found all across the radio dial. Religion, including the most restrictive and authoritarian forms, can be found everywhere on the internet, too. So while new information and communication technology can threaten authoritarian systems, they will also always be used by those same systems. They can't ignore the technology, even if they might wish that the technology didn't exist in the first place -- or could at least be kept out of the hands of their competitors.

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