on May 31st, 2009 by solitudeone
There are a few things in this earthly world which I find myself unable to tolerate. Most assurdly, you have your own list of such things which simply go against your inner spirit. A few things from my own list make their way to a little list of things which I just outright will not support in any way. Never have, and never will. I would hope that some of them are common to your personal list as well.
Racism-an obvious ‘no-brainer’
Bigotry
Religious Intolerance/Hate
Gender Hate (either direction for any reason)
Falsehoods-this includes half-truths, lies and deception. (I am a firm believer in ‘Nvda Veritias.’ [Naked Truth])
A bit of difficultly placing a label on this one, though the concept and practice of is quite clear: using a spiritual belief/practice to propagate and promote any of the above mentioned. (I find this utterly deplorable.)
Of late, I’ve been coming across scattered news accounts concerning the rise of ‘hate groups’ infiltrating social websites. The most popular social sites, obviously, the most mentioned by news media sources.
CNN.com
News.com.au
TechShout
These are generally easy enough for the smaller, niche webmasters/mistresses to identify within their ranks. But, what of our beloved pagan social sites? Whereupon freedoms of religous and spiritual beliefs are a foundation, as is the resulting freedoms to express those beliefs. Where do we as pagans draw the line between those freedoms, and the rights tauted by members to express within those freedoms, along with their self-inherited right to express forms of more personal hatred under the cloak of “spiritual belief”? This is the real question faced by many pagan social sites today.
Webmasters/mistresses of pagan social sites have options and choices to make in these matters. Ranging from remaining impartial to banning such activity on their site, along with some more disturbing and unpleasant middle ground approaches which always seem to result in having to moderate vast amounts of flaming, witch-wars and the like. Needing to choose what is “good for the whole”, is not only difficult, but often falls to the wayside in the choice to allow freedoms of speech.
The decision to remove any form of hatred, racism or the likes, falls not only upon the webmaster/mistress, but within the community membership as well for their freedom to speak out against such hatreds also becomes hindered. What is best for the survival of the whole community should be a guideline, at least, should be. Here, as well as with the site owners, comes that pesky question: “Where do we as Pagans draw the line against hatred?” For such a diverse group which believes in so many spiritual freedoms, this seems to be one tough question to answer.
I am called Solitudeone. This is my space. And today, I choose to become the thorn in your hateful side.
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