Politics and Religion on Facebook

Musings by: Joe P. Attanasio

Let me preface this blog with some insights about me personally. If you haven’t read my past blogs let me recommend two:

That is not what I meant! By: Joe P. Attanasio

And,

Passion and Debate: Thoughts by: Joe P. Attanasio.

In the first blog I endeavor to bring to everyone attention how in written communication our intended meaning is often lost or misinterpreted.

When commenting and posting on Political and Religious subject matter (both sensitive issues for many) this has the potential for damaging relationships.

In the second blog I give my opinion that ‘Passion and Debate mix as well as Oil and Water.’ I go on to say:

“I think a debate should have rules. Perhaps be limited to a certain amount of time or number of points. This should be agreed on beforehand. I also think a person should be able to “agree to disagree” in some cases and end all discussion by making that statement.

I know some people that enjoy debating just about anything with their friends. They revel in presenting pros and cons for hours. They get to exhibit there knowledge and expertise and truly enjoy the whole experience. I say, “Good for you if that is your thing.”

To me, debate is just a fancy word for argue until you prove yourself right. Although I am passionate about a great many things, you will rarely find me willing to debate my point. I don’t like the confrontation. I will state my opinion and you can agree or disagree. Try to debate with me and “I will pass”.

   

So basically I do not like to discuss Religion or Politics in public on Facebook because it makes me uncomfortable and because I fear my comments may be misinterpreted. I also do not like to even see most of these.

I have felt myself bristle with anger over a number of political and religious posts in the last few years. The comments people make range from supportive to rude to completely idiotic in my opinion. While this may be mildly amusing to some, I take umbrage over these posts.

I feel many of the political memes I see have been created to discredit one political party or individual or another. I suspect that is the sole purpose for many of the memes to be created, so we can spread and sway our friends in one direction or the other. Well, I personally think that is terrible and I refuse to become part of it.

While the religious memes are generally benign in nature bringing religious views into unrelated posts as comments can cause hard feelings between people of different mindsets.

Especially around election time I wish Facebook would allow filtering by use of a button to hide all political posts. When the status or meme is posted a list of categories could come up like Religious, Political, Advertisement, Adult Language, or Other to be selected. Of course, this will never happen as Facebook wants as many posts and interactions as they can get to show to their advertisers. 

These types of posts are all too frequent for my taste.

This is just me giving my opinion.

Read through my archives for all my blog titles.