LINK Atheist perspective: The tight censorship in online atheist groups that challenges enlightening discussion – Lauren Ell Talk
"I have questioned how is the atheist community supposed to evolve if sharing atheist opinions is considered 'self-promotion'? Are we supposed to constantly be surrounded by opinion pieces by the same atheists, like Richard Dawkins?"
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"a flurry of opposition" or "censorship" is usually whinging for "people disagreed with me" AND they used evidence and reason AND dared to examine my premises.
Currently it is usually the preserve of the conservative side largely because it is they who've moved furthest from evidence based argument. A few decades ago it was the other side for similar reasons. This may be why conservatives are currently having a hard time in atheist circles, because the conservative agenda at the moment is actively attacking the bases of reason and evidence based thought in our societies.
My evidence is the ongoing actual censorship of government scientists by the actual government. IE by the people who have the true power of censorship. This has increased under conservative governments faster than under their allegedly progressive opponents. This trend is not confined to the USA. Canada, Australia , and the UK have all had their turns. Further to that, conservative governments have been more likely to dismiss evidence as a basis for policy ironically preferring the ideological purity (a VERY Stalinist idea) of Hayekian economics.
As @FortyTwo notes, we need to see the evidence of censorship, not mere disagreement or robust criticism.
RobAnybody
Level 7
May 3, 2018
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What do you think about censorship under communist and socialist-leaning governments?
@repubatheists Authoritarian is authoritarian. In the context of censorship their economics don't much matter.
However, the conversation was about how atheists "censor" "conservative" (Burke wouldn't recognise them as fellow travelers) views. In this context the behavior of authoritarian regimes is moot as they also censor atheists and other rationalists leaving little room for those groups to disagree with others.
@RobAnybody If you consider censorship under communist governments to equate to censorship under "conservative" governments (you pointed out US, Canada, UK, Australia), then we have a completely different perspective of the world 
@repubatheists Yes we do have a different perspective. Governments perform acts of censorship. Individuals may ridicule, debate, howl down, or otherwise criticise points of view but they (with the exception of absolute monarchies) cannot censor, which the OP implies they do.
You've then moved the goalposts to try to make it a debate of totalitarian socialist regimes v liberal western regimes, IE a strawman with respect to the OP, and my comment.
However, totalitarian regimes of all economic persuasions, conservative and socialist, practice fairly heavy censorship. Regimes in the liberal tradition purport to support free speech. Yet we see the "conservative" side of politics in the countries I mentioned limiting free speech more rapidly than the "progressive" side.* The evidence for this is the muzzling of scientific agencies in those countries under the conservative parties, restricting the speech of the scientists, possibly acceptable as they are taking government coin, and the reliable evidence available to the polity. This last is unacceptable as it amounts to withholding information from the electors, in other words trying trying to sway the debate by acts of censorship.
- "Conservative" and "progressive" are used thus because neither side in liberal western polities actually fit these descriptions and they are relative in any case.
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