Is it a good idea to publish comments from someone who believes they may be the ‘Second Coming’?
On this post about Padre Pio standing at the gates of heaven waiting for all his spiritual children, someone posting as ‘anonymous’ sent me a comment saying; “your ultimate goal is to fix your relationship with the gods and move on…. I may be that Real Second Coming… What I teach is the gods’ real way.”
I have not published this comment…yet. There are pros and cons to publishing such a comment. A blog is a forum where people may debate, swap ideas, and also if someone has an issue or a misunderstanding, then the other readers may give comments that are helpful and beneficial to the person’s faith and life. But where does one begin when a commentator who believes they may be a Messiah writes; “it has been discussed that similar to the matrix complex, the gods will offer a REAL Second Coming”. It does sound like the product of cultish brainwashing, does it not? Someone who believes that gods like The Olympians (see the picture to the left) are in control.
Except maybe it is a hoax – someone hiding behind their computer screen who might just be having a laugh writing a comment that is full of theories about pleasing gods by living a chaste life – I kid you not. And it is posted as anonymous – perhaps it’s too strong to say that I never really trust anonymous commentators. If one stands by what they write, they might take the ‘risk’ of putting their name to it. As Ezra Pound said; “If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he's no good”
One complexity with the blogosphere is that there is a lot of guilt-by-association. If a blogger publishes a comment that is strange and delusional, then is the blogger siding and agreeing with the commentator? This goes against the essence of proper debate where several different opinions may be heard, and just because one person voices a contrary, off-the-wall opinion it does not mean that the person hosting the debate is responsible for this opinion… Or does it? If I publish a comment from someone who says that we will go to Heaven ‘only’ if we follow the gods’ way, then am I leading other people who might read this comment astray? If I publish this comment, are people so gullible and impressionable that they would be misled into believing in these ‘gods’?
Except maybe it is a hoax – someone hiding behind their computer screen who might just be having a laugh writing a comment that is full of theories about pleasing gods by living a chaste life – I kid you not. And it is posted as anonymous – perhaps it’s too strong to say that I never really trust anonymous commentators. If one stands by what they write, they might take the ‘risk’ of putting their name to it. As Ezra Pound said; “If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he's no good”
One complexity with the blogosphere is that there is a lot of guilt-by-association. If a blogger publishes a comment that is strange and delusional, then is the blogger siding and agreeing with the commentator? This goes against the essence of proper debate where several different opinions may be heard, and just because one person voices a contrary, off-the-wall opinion it does not mean that the person hosting the debate is responsible for this opinion… Or does it? If I publish a comment from someone who says that we will go to Heaven ‘only’ if we follow the gods’ way, then am I leading other people who might read this comment astray? If I publish this comment, are people so gullible and impressionable that they would be misled into believing in these ‘gods’?
I allow comments to publish themselves on my blog, unless they are a few days old, in which case I might miss them and the person might think I'm ignoring them. I haven't found it neccessary to delete one....yet! Hope I didn't speak too soon.
ReplyDeleteI did delete a post once, it was a video that someone found blasphemous. I didn't notice this myself, ofcourse, but took it down anyway.
However, it is difficult I agree. One wouldn't want to lead other readers into investigating something that might prove destructive in their life.
Probably there is no yes or no answer. You just do what you think is responsible at that moment. If it's wrong, hey! You made a mistake. However, if it is a case of harming a soul, I would err on the side of caution.
I have some blog links in my sidebar that sometimes publish posts I don't agree with, but assume the blogging community realises we are not responsible for everyone else's posts!
Heck, I've only just started accepting responsibility for some of the stuff I've churned out, both in posts and comments!!!
I'm leaving a comment on behalf of Frank Rega:
ReplyDelete"Mary, it would seem that your blog would come under the umbrella of "Catholic Blogs," and I recall that you attended the conference of Catholic bloggers at the Vatican. Since you maintain what is essentially a Catholic Christian blog, rather than a secular one, you are well within your rights to reject a post which extols some sort of paganism or pagan 'gods,' or in some way denigrates Christianity." Frank Rega