Catholics Get Bashed by Web 2.0 Crowd
[This post offers up some interesting topics for discussion — Ed.]
As a faithful Catholic who embraces the Internet and the whole Web 2.0 "movement," I am always amazed at how totally liberal and anti-religion many of the bright folks in this field are. Just today I was reading the great website TechCrunch, when I came across this article by Paul Carr, who wrote:
"If this were a column about religious affairs, I would undoubtedly focus this week on the shocking news that Beelzebub himself has joined a coalition opposing child abuse in the Catholic church."
It's clear that in Mr. Carr's mind there isn't the possiblity that one of the readers on his site might be a faithful Catholic who is offended by such a jab. Oh, well. Anticatholicsm is as old as the hills and the haters of the Church will always use the clergy sexual abuse scandal to slam the Gospel.
Any thoughts???
Comments
Um..yeah. H@ters come in all shapes and sizes.
RE: the Web 2.0 crowd...
I hang out in discussion forums and reader article comments from the so-called 'Web 2.0' community quite often. To a certain extent I suppose I'm even a part of it since I really don't care much for Web 1.0 anymore. Heck, 2.0 is almost getting a little long of tooth!
Yeah...the crowd is a bit 'hipster' driven and they strive to be 'cool'. Unfortunately, this includes using a bunch of snarky comments about things they really don't know or understand...including Religion in general and Catholicism specifically.
I'm no longer fazed by the cliche soundbites they re-gurgitate from Jon Stewart or the fallen away Catholic Maher. For the MOST part, it's ignorance...but sometimes more malicious.
I suppose you could try to engage some of them and help them see the light, but I've never found that as fruitful as praying for them. The Mass and the Rosary can change the world!
For me personally, whether it's in web design or any part of our culture, I try to find and use what is good and throw away the rest.
Interesting topic though.
Same goes here. OSS is full of people who are more or less agnostic, but there are a ton of religious people interspersed. What amuses me most is the fact that, quite often, the least tolerant people in these fora are those who are supposedly the "most open" and "free" - they just can't tolerate hearing about Catholicism, Christianity, or viewpoints that differ the slightest from an 'anything goes' attitude.
On the other hand, most Catholics I know in OSS are very open to discussing things with people on the other side of the fence.
Nice post - gives some good food for thought!
Advancing the faith.
Anti-Catholicism: The last acceptable prejudice. Some places are more hostile than others (e.g. reddit).
Pistos
Catholicism Computes - http://blog.purepistos.net
This topic reminds me of a post I did a while back that I titled
"Does TechCrunch have beef with Christianity?" I was both surprised and appreciative of one of the TechCrunch authors' taking the time to respond to my post. But I've noticed the little jabs as well.
Try *promoting* Catholic authors, sites, blogs, podcasts, newspapers, etc online for over fifteen years! Amazingly, most have been gracious and few attack esp. if when they realized my goal was to not *evangelize* but be a part of a learning community of like-minded online marketers. In fact, they often enjoy the perspective I bring to the table. Like @catholicservant, I have learned to be tolerant and not engage in arguments about Catholicism: it's just not worth my time. Peace to your day!
http://twitter.com/BarbaraKB
http://twitter.com/CatholicMeme
After reading these posts I remembered something.
I try to bump stories on my day gig site(Catholic newspaper) by submitting to DIGG. I often chuckle at what some of the readers think of our stories. I gave up reading content off that site quite awhile ago...some of the most rabid and vicious commenters you'll never want to meet.
I like to think I'm Johnny Appleseed...who knows, maybe it'll fall on some fertile soil.
Unfortunately, I don't think it's just Catholics getting bashed. My impression is that the "anti-Christians" are getting more vocal and openly hostile than in the past. Your guess is as good as mine as to what the cause is - are there more non-religious people now, or have society's standards dropped to the point where open hostility is tolerated?
It is the titles that gets the attention of social crowds and with that in mind one site could get a decent amount of quick readers when using tactics like that. The actual article could be on the opposite way of the title and it is used just to get attention.
my web: tarjous lehti
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