Comment

Comment by Wes Bonez on August 2, 2010 at 1:50am

Was it Harris that said 'People do not have the right to not be offended'. While there are a set of rules for polite discussions, you have the right to say what is on your mind. If they choose to get offended, that is an emotional response and their problem.

On a side note about the Irish arse in your inbox: does VenomFangX have a brother from another mother?

Comment by Richard Healy on August 2, 2010 at 1:17am

We've been having an intermittent dialogue, he seems to feel that if I am critical of religion in public at all that's raking over the coals of church abuse.

The actual comment that started this latest round of abuse, was the following:


Someone posted a magazine article about gay priests in Rome.

2nd post said - I know where I am going on holiday next then.

to which I replied.

I knew a guy who said he always fancied bedding a man of the cloth. I told him that was weird and creepy. He just laughed.

My comment is in fact entirely unrelated to church abuse as I stand accused, it was an accurate report of a conversation I had with with a friend who not only wanted to date a priest but did so successfully, I didn't mention that in the forum.

I don't think the guy in question was a priest rather in fact had ecclesiastical ambitions - and it was a very good relationship as far as I know - but the man's faith and sexuality were (predictably) permanently at odds. It didn't work out. And his (my friend's) comment to me then was: "just what the catholic church needs another self-hating repressed gay guy."

Okay so that's the context on my end of the comment in italics I relayed in the forum as a bit of light hearted whimsy.

A few days later he posts a reply to me:

And so are you. What's problem you bigot ?!

And a minute or so later, I get the private messages which were the subject of this blog.'


So I hadn't even gone near an issue of church abuse, at all and this is the evidence for the hair-trigger effect with him. Clearly he read the forum after it had been started, it's called somethign like 98% of Priests are gay (a ridiculous statistic but that's the news story) so he's chosen to expose himself to a topic about religion which he apparently feels upset about, and has then exploded about an issue which I wasn't even talking about.


I think a call for help is about accurate, a dialogue - ordinarily yes but this was the debate about refer to the mods or not it is no longer a debate in which I am the sole participant - and if you've got any suggestions on how I talk my way out of this one: I am all ears.

Comment by Richard Healy on August 2, 2010 at 12:58am

So I have now referred it upwards and made the mods of that site aware of the emails but I caveatted it with some cautionary sympathy things. I don't (in spite of the taunt) want to ban someone from anywhere, but I think it's clear this has passed beyond the normal bounds of a disagreement so the more people who are involved now the better (a bit like blackmail the power exists if you preserve the relationship)

It's not only me he's targeted recently, so this lashing out is getting worse (the context of that, muggins was involved again discussing religious belief in an anthropological vein of 'metamagical thinking' I think, I can't be certain but later he was railing about being accused of 'believing in magic' which isn't the same thing but oh well.)

I think, it's not clear, if he was abused or that the abuse he has experienced happened to other people i.e some scenario like a close friend who then killed themselves. It's something like that I think. PTSD might not be that far off, he's inconsistently depressive, attention-seeking, reputation as a madcap joker (probably as a public compensation) and I'm discovering a hair-trigger sensitivity to anyone mentioning religion. (One of my other recent blogs was about my apparent insult to the dead - no prizes for guessing who was accusing me then too?)

As my fellow (metamagical) accusee said to me yesterday, it's a wonder if that's even slightly close to accurate, why he isn't more hostile to the church, but I suspect this isn't supposed to make a lick of sense so why fight it?

IKAB, is an abbreviated title of a forum I started, mostly just for me to ramble on, it's gone on to become one of the most heavily commented and popular threads on the site (64164 views 3479 posts) where I occasionally still drop in to mini-blog what's going on with me. So it's not even my soapbox anymore! not that it ever was, a fact that appears to have escaped him entirely.

,: ^ \

I do think he probably needs help of some shape or form. In recent days he's posted a number of threads that are garbled, barely comprehendable, ('metamagic' speculated to me he might have been drunk when he wrote them. I really don't know.)

Comment by Renshia on August 2, 2010 at 12:52am

Maybe the guy is really hurting and looking for an avenue to express himself. Often lashing out is a call for help. Write the guy back and enter a dialog with him. Be gentile and you can help him address his anger. Often people hang onto thing because they don't know there are better options. Maybe you could be the caring person that listens without judgment and condemnation.

Then again it may just be a waste of time... But would it hurt to try?

Comment by Jim DePaulo on August 1, 2010 at 9:46pm

The guy has some seriously screwed up neuro-connections and probably should be getting counseling rather than giving counsel.
If this were my problem I would just ignore him. Although poking a loon with a stick can be amusing if you're in that mood.

Comment by Daniel on August 1, 2010 at 9:43pm

>>soapbox IKAB and atheism

What is IKAB?

Comment by Al-KADIM on August 1, 2010 at 8:33pm

Seems like he is very sensitive to sexual abuse and has come to some way of dealing with the problem. Perhaps he was abused himself. Perhaps someone close to him was. Perhaps he thinks that by ignoring the problem of clergy abuse he can make it disappear. I can't condone that, but depending on how close he is to the problem, I can't condemn him for it either. Just let it go.

Comment by Prog Rock Girl on August 1, 2010 at 8:11pm

The first message was so screwed up. He's hoping you'll keep it a secret, saying how much you'd hurt him, and then also insulting you and saying he's going to be after you every chance he gets? If I got a message like that I'd be glad that he was "deeply hurt" by things that I said! But that's just me.

Comment by Sentient Biped on August 1, 2010 at 8:10pm

Richard,
When your antagonist states "You have NO concept of the hurt you are causing victims/survivors of sexual abuse. Clerical especially... I lived it." is he stating he lived through sexual abuse perpetrated by clerics, or that he is a cleric that has perpetrated sexual abuse? Or, that he has counseled one or the other of the above?

If this is someone going through PTSD from a history of abuse, my answer would be different from that in case of the other options.

Comment by Daniel on August 1, 2010 at 7:55pm

Depends on your mood, smartly step up the rhetoric, push the right buttons and let him reveal himself to everyone so he doesn't have a residual 'martyr' defense or just: ignore him / junk email filter / request forum ban.

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