Religiously filtering search

Habiba Nosheen on NPR did an interesting story yesterday on a new trend in internet search. The internet is a wide open medium. There are few, if any, limits on what can be published to the web. That is a blessing because we can find information on almost any subject by typing a few key words in a search engine. It is a curse because often we will get information we never intended - and may not have wanted. Sometimes we get information that's downright repulsive or directly counter to our beliefs. Now there are search engines that cater to groups, specifically religious groups, by filtering out content that does not conform to the religious belief system. There are sites for Jews, Muslims and Christians

This is an interesting development, and perhaps an obvious evolution from filtered content. Filtered search is similar to filtered content, but more flexible. When you subscribe to a filtered content provider you can search using any search engine, but may not be able to access all of the results that come up. With filtered search you will be able to access any link in the results, and if you either don't get the result you were expecting or think you're missing something you can go to a traditional search engine and access any result that pops up.

The article names three faith-centric search engines:

seekfind is a Christian search engine that appears to run it's own indexes.

jewogle is a Jewish search engine powered by Google.

I'mHalal is an Islamic search engine that also appears to do it's own indexing. I like that it has general web search, news search, and Qur'an search.

Filtered search engines using religious guidelines is a pretty neat idea. They allow people to get online who might not be able to take advantage of the World Wide Web without the protection filtering provides, but don't limit greater access if it is needed.

I wonder how well the Christian search engine conforms to the idea of being in the world but not of it? But I wonder the same thing about Christian bookstores, movies, and other "Christian" things that isolate us from the world we're supposed to be "salt and light" to.

Is Ground Zero mosque a First Amendment issue?

I've been reading a lot of interesting things about the Cordoba Mosque. Some interesting, some amusing, some disturbing, but all hyped up and full of hyperbole:

Paul Shmelzer of the Minnesota Independent reports that Muslim groups are upset that Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty said the Ground Zero mosque is "inappropriate."

I would say he's probably right. If it is really being placed there to build bridges, it's planners need to wake up, because it is having the opposite effect. National head of the Anti-Defamation league Abraham H. Foxman used the example of the Carmelite convent established near Auschwitz as a model(1) for how the mosques planners should act:

The lessons of an earlier and different controversy echo in this one. In 1993, Pope John Paul II asked 14 Carmelite Nuns to move their convent from just outside the Auschwitz death camp. The establishment of the convent near Auschwitz had stirred dismay among Jewish groups and survivors who felt that the location was an affront and a terrible disservice to the memory of millions of Jews who died at the hands of the Nazis in the Holocaust.

Just as we thought then that well-meaning efforts by Carmelite nuns to build a Catholic structure were insensitive and counterproductive to reconciliation, so too we believe it will be with building a mosque so close to Ground Zero.

Is it really that hard to understand? The Carmelites had no connection to Hitlers death camps, yet Pope John Paul II understood that the location of the convent was an afront to the Jewish community and that it should be moved. Feisal Abdul Rauf should be able to understand the same of his Cordoba mosque.

I even read a translated Arabic article that said the U.S. government should confiscate all funds set aside for the mosque. But while I agree that the mosque should not be built two blocks from Ground Zero and that it is offensive to many, we have a document that says our federal government cannot stop it's being built. Unless there is proof that it will be a haven/planning center for terrorists, no one will argue that it is not being built by an established religion. As such the First Amendment to the Constitution applies.

If a project with the stated purpose of "building bridges" causes this much controversy and animosity, it needs to be re-evaluated. It's obviously heading in the wrong direction at the outset.

 

(1)Mr. Foxman didn't include the entire Carmelite Auschwitz story. The convent was moved, but the controversy is ongoing.

OUR VIEW; 'GROUND ZERO' MOSQUE? OFFENSIVE, BUT AMERICAN.(Editorials): An article from: The Santa Fe New Mexican (Santa Fe, NM)