How responsible are we, really?

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FaithRuir

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Our world is full of sin, obviously, of course we can put our efforts into not being parts of it.

It’s in our lives
TV
talking to friends
The internet

But then again
How responsible are we when we’re talking to a friend with a vocabulary with many swear words and blasphemies. If we know they’ll respond with these to an otherwise unobjectionable statement should we say it?

What about online today? It’s “pride month”, and brand twitter accounts, websites, and their mothers are hopping onto the bandwagon of rainbow profile pictures and colorations.
I know this sounds like their problem, but what about how it appears on our screens? Whenever you see anything on social media (like a comment or profile picture), your computer requests it, and the website server gives it.
Obviously, computers can’t sin, and these are automatic actions. But in these cases WE make it so that they do this by going on said site.
In these situations, I see that there’s some people at fault. The corporation or person that made the profile change, and the brand allowing it to be shown across the site.
Could they be sinning by allowing this to happen each time? Is every time we see it a sin on their part? Don’t we become immediate cooperators?

Am I thinking too much?
 
I believe it starts at the very top.
We have a president who spouts hatred and used profanity.
It kind of makes it seem like an okay way to be.
I seek children mimicking the president and parents laughing at their children.
Very sad. 🙁☹️😰
 
Oh good grief, our President does not “spout hatred”. Unless you want to also include just about everybody in Washington on both sides and say they all “spout hatred”.

Yes, OP, you are overthinking this.
If your friend blasphemes or swears and you don’t like it, call them out on it and ask them to not use that language in your presence because you think it’s wrong and it upsets you. I have no problem telling my friends when I think they have crossed a line. If they continue with the behavior, stop talking to them, find a new friend.

As for Pride Month, I’ve seen 3 pictures on Facebook of my friends at pride events, and about 20 threads about it on CAF. CAF is pushing more gay content at me on a daily basis than actual gay people I know. And of course I do not feel responsible for any of it. I’m not gay, never been gay, I treat gay people with kindness and if they want to have a parade or event no one is forcing me to go.
 
When did the President spout hatred? I keep hearing that he does, but no specific examples that can actually be looked up and proven.
 
Yes, because the issues with profanity, bad behavior, and hatred in America totally only started when Trump got elected. :roll_eyes:

There isn’t an eye roll emoji on this planet big enough to express how ridiculous this is.

As for hatred, it astounds me how people can view facts as hatred, but whatever.
 
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We are responsible to make good decisions to the best our our ability.
“Agency”

We observe, we absorb, we reason, we evaluate, we act.
To the degree we are virtuous we can take free responsibility and make good decisions.
To the degree we are enslaved to vice, we are tossed about like a feather in the wind.

As far as your question about internet pop-ups: you are only responsible for those things you can control. You can control you internet usage, you can’t control what pops up in ads.
 
Since the OP mentioned pride month I’ll comment on that. We don’t have to be a part of any of it but it’s getting harder and harder to not be exposed to it even for people who make an effort to avoid anything promoting it. We can avoid the parades and media where we know it will likely will be exposed, but as much as we try to avoid it we are still exposed. I was watching a sports interview show and there was a gay pride feature. At a library there was a big pride display. In the paper I saw another library is having a transgender story hour. The residents were split on it, with some praising it, others ignoring it, and others saying they will be there to protest because they don’t want kids being exposed it. Not to mention all the exposure to kids in the schools. Adults can avoid and ignore it and let’s hope parents can guide and teach in the right way when other adults in the schools and elsewhere promote this to impressionable kids.
 
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“beat the hell out of a protester”
Yeah, I don’t believe for a second that you actually heard that. That may be how you interpreted something, but if he had actually said that it would have made national news.
 
Alright, even if we accept your opinion that a President who has put two conservative Justices on the Supreme Court bench is “vile and nasty”, he’s still not responsible for the fact that the OP’s friends swear and blaspheme, nor that Pride Month happens every year. People have been swearing and blaspheming since language began, and Pride Month started during the Clinton Administration.

Whether Trump, Biden or Pope Francis is sitting in the White House has nothing to do with how individual people behave. It’s a pathetic narrative that somehow Trump occupying the Oval Office is responsible for everything wrong with the country and especially for the behavior of its individual citizens, unless you want to talk about the extreme bad manners and poor behavior of many of the anti-Trump rioters and protesters. I find that absolutely distasteful that you’d even bring that into a thread about people’s personal behavior, not because I love Donald Trump so much but because it’s a completely baseless statement and the kind of garbage I’d expect from a liberal media outlet, not from a reasonable poster on this forum. You have lost all credibility with me. Time to hit the ol’ Ignore. Bye.
 
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No saint? He would have to come 20 rungs up a ladder just to get to the needs-all-the-prayers-he-can-get level.
Rough, gruff, and tough? No I would say more whiny, nasty, and mean-spirited.
You trust a man who has flip-flopped on political issues more than a pancake on a hot pan? For most of his life, Trump supported Pro-Choice candidates. He has a history of being a womanizer, who pays off porn stars. But when he decided to run for President, all of a sudden he supports Pro-Life and is a Bible-toting saint. Please!
CajunJoy, I respect you as a true Catholic. You are a good person. But please do not try to sell me on the president.
I will pray for Trump. I have since he gained the White House. Unfortunately, I have seen little change in the man. He seems to make himself happy by belittling others…But I believe in the power of prayer. So onward and hopefully upward. 🙏🙏🙏
 
It is true sin is everywhere, however we remain free to do evil or good. While there will always be people who use profanity that is no excuse for us to also use it.

If you feel your friend has crossed a line while speaking you can always ask them to mind their language and if they refuse to do so, I would say it would be better walk away, they are not your friends anyway if that was the case.

When committing sin if someone is facilitating sin to occur they are also guilty indirectly, however no matter how much they try we retain the decision to sin or not and no one can force us otherwise.

God will only hold us accountable for our actions, not for the actions of others.
 
But when he decided to run for President, all of a sudden he supports Pro-Life and is a Bible-toting saint. Please!
Hyperbole at it’s best. No one is saying he’s a saint. We’re not even claiming he has truly embraced the pro-life ideology. But the actual, palpable results speak for themselves. He has actually done something to support the pro-life cause. I don’t really care if he’s embraced it internally, he’s actually doing good. Hopefully there has been a real change and he’s on his way to repentance.
 
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I agree, but the thing is, we can control them by not going on those sites.

Do we have an obligation to prevent this by not going on those sites and becoming part of that campaign in that way? We provoke these ads popping up so isn’t it immediate cooperation?
 
Use an ad blocker and it will reduce having ads “pop up”.

Beyond using an ad blocker, we can’t control which ads “pop up” for us except by providing feedback, where possible, that an ad is irrelevant or we don’t like it. We might get ads for stuff like birth control or immodest clothing if the ad algorithm thinks we’re in a certain age group.

All the stuff you’re saying is the same stuff people said 50 years ago about television. Should we watch television when there’s going to be a sponsor with an ad for something we don’t want to support, such as cigarettes, or the Vietnam War, or bikinis. You could choose to stop watching TV or stop using Internet if you felt it was an occasion of sin for you, or if you decided you just didn’t need or want it in your life. But you aren’t required to reject reasonably moral entertainment options just because there are sinful ads in the world.
 
So true. I don’t particularly like President Trump, but there is no doubt that his actions have been more pro-life than any president in recent history. Actions speak louder than words.
 
Do your best. Advice can’t cover every situation. You have to work that out on the ground.
Strive to be virtuous.
 
Well it’s not just that. I know it sounds pretty remote at first.

But the thing is it can also be related to brand twitter and it’s abundance of rainbows in June

My main point in this regard is are we being immediate cooperators by let’s say following these twitter accounts or provoking these images online on our screens?
I know we aren’t responsible for the image changes themselves, but by logging into said site our computers request their images, and we make their images and agendas shown more? Don’t we become a direct part of it?
 
CAF has more about Pride month than any other website I have personally seen - including social media.
 
Idk I think I see more offsite. Probably because I see a lot of brands and younger people on twitter
 
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