Well I must admit, I thought it was paranoia at first, the idea that an open social networking site would ban atheism from its groups. It just seemed absurd... but it seems to be true. If you go to MySpace and try to find atheist groups, you'll find a few tiny groups, no trace of the largest group, the Atheist and Agnostic Group which prior to November 2007 sported over 35,000 members.
It seems religious intolerants simply report the group for having ideas offensive to them, and the group gets banned - and it seems impossible to be un-banned.
There are several possible responses to this silliness. Play tit-for-tat and simply report any and every religious group for offensiveness, insult to reason, etc. Turn the other cheek and abandon MySpace which is essentially giving in. Launch a campaign to expose the intolerance by reporting this widely and raising the issue wherever we can to make it plain how religious influence inhibits free discussion. Perhaps a combination of all three would make the rulers of MySpace review their policy of closing down atheist discussion.
If you read this, please post a notice on your own blog, forum, discussion group, etc. You can see more at: http://www.secularstudents.org/node/1933
Late addition: There does seem to be some indication that the group was hacked and that the new site is at http://groups.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=groups.groupProfile&groupID=100002606&Mytoken=2D2AA199-7777-4D8F-BB118B8C54BAD16A17021819
It's version III of the group which tells its own story...
