Oafish Behavior By Catholics

This post regards a not-so-new phenomenon prevalent among some Catholics on the internet to post and giggle at memes that are irreverent towards sacred matters or that utilize flagrant grammar and/or spelling errors.  When these are pointed out (and by far I have not been the only one to do so), the posters - or perpetrators - seem to take perverse pride in their irreverence and/or sloppiness.  They scoff at anyone who points out their errors.

This sacrilege is considered funny by some

We are accused of not having a "sense of humor".  Behind such accusations I suspect is a bit of group-think.  The memes are posted on Facebook with the expectation of eliciting laughter.  When someone voices an opinion that isn't one of hilarity, that person is subjected to none-too-subtle peer pressure to get with the program and to mindlessly giggle along with the rest of the crowd.  That group-think peer pressure is often invoked in the mantra "lighten up".  Their "lightening up" is really a dumbing down of holiness, piety, intellectual integrity, language integrity, and serious thought,  I touched on this several years ago, and not much has changed, except that I am seeing this more and more among people who call themselves Catholic.

The routine is that someone posts a meme that treats with flippancy matters of the Catholic faith, or involves crude jokes of sexual or scatological matters.  Obviously the poster intends others to giggle and chortle like mindless hyenas or chimpanzees.  That establishes the group-think expectation and many people fall right in.  Should anyone dare to question the so-called joke, the mob mocks them, accusing them of not having a "sense of humor".  It's rather similar to the snow-flakes accusing independent thinkers of engaging in "hate speech".  They are attempting to squelch thinking contrary to their own, most likely because it stings their consciences.  I find it eerily reminiscent of nazi-like behavior.

Since I wrote that post eleven years ago, I have been pondering that, plus the nonsense that has come up since.  Lately tik-tok videos have been cropping up, in blind compliance with various "challenges" that are made.  One of them involved a parent or other adult trusted by a baby, cracking an egg on the child's head and giggling over the child's distress by the assault.  Yes, it is assault.  Others involve the throwing of food at the child's face, again to record the child's reaction.  I am stunned that some Catholics take a nonchalant attitude towards these actions.  At what level of harm would they finally wake up?

I tried to come up with a word that defines these folks - again, many of them Catholics - who engage in this behavior, under the seeming anonymity of the internet.  While I wouldn't say they are acting in a manner typical of apostates, they certainly conduct themselves in manners that are more adolescent.  They act as though they are devoid of common sense and common manners.  The word I think, is OAF.  Most of the online definitions of that word include the word "stupid".  

If some reading this bristle at the definition, are you the sort that glories in your demonstrations of lackluster language skills?  Do you take pride in guffawing at irreverent and/or crude memes and jokes simply because they flash across your screens, being slaves to internet group-think?

If the shoe fits, wear it.  Or better yet, you could always decide that you will grow up and act like a reasonable adult, both away from the computer and online.

The Cheese-Slap Abuse Of Babies Tik-Tok Fad

Last week I saw a post on Facebook that quite obviously displayed the lack of regard that many people, including parents, have for babies and their inherent dignity as human beings.  It involves a Tik-Tok challenge, whereby a parent or other adult (aside - I regret calling them "parent" and "adult" for they don't deserve those titles) will throw a slice of cheese into their babies' faces and record them for their 5 minutes of internet fame.

In this abortion culture of death, this really should come as no shock.  If parents can disregard their children enough to pay for their murders at the hands of abortionists, why wouldn't they display the same lack of respect for them when they reduce the babies to mere clowns, playthings for their amusement?

Apparently this Tik Tok challenge has been around for a year or so, but I only got wind of it when it showed up in my Facebook feed from more than one of my facebook friends.  Quite troubling is that one facebook friend, a Catholic, seems to see no problem with throwing things into babies' faces.  She doesn't seem to understand the connection that it has with the anti-life mentality that permeates so much of this post-modern world.

First let's take a look at the nature of these Tik-Tok challenges.  I have heard of such things whereby some thug, mindlessly obeying one of these, will beat up some unsuspecting person on the sidewalk, leaving them injured.  Many thefts have also occurred, committed by those of little thought and even lesser conscience, again slavishly following along one of these "challenges".

So why do people just passively comply with these suggestions?  Do they really crave the attention that badly?  Why are they so ready to suspend their critical thinking abilities and even their sense of common decency to obey someone whom they don't even know?  Maybe they simply don't have a firm set of beliefs nor the ability to think beyond their emotions.  Maybe they simply haven't grasped what it is to be a rational adult.  Of course the anti-life anti-God mindset is all over this.

Some people claim that cheese calms a crying baby, as if that is a justification.  However, the aim is stated quite clearly in this video - "throw a piece of cheese at your (crying) baby and see what happens".  Right there we see the child is turned into a guinea pig for the sake of amusement.  In many of these clips, the baby isn't crying until the cheese is tossed at him/her.  Some cry afterwards.  At least one parental nitwit slaps the cheese onto his baby as his child is eating, lacking the common sense to understand that the startlement might have cause the baby to choke on his/her food.  In a few of the clips, the child is playing on the floor while the parent sneaks up on them, cheese slice in hand, then slaps the kid with the cheese.  If the parent were to do that to another adult, we'd have no problem calling that an assault.  That is exactly what this is.

A pediatrician posted her own thoughts and objections on tik-tok, and I think her words are worth a respectful audience.  Here is the link to her clip.

With a few intelligent exceptions, the comments on her clip (and the other) show many people to be absolute boors and oafs.  Ladies and gentlemen, this is some of the rotten fruit of a society that has rejected God and thus any idea of their own humanity. 

What I find somewhat troubling is that I saw this on Facebook, and some of my facebook friends seem to have no issue with throwing things at babies, violating the trust that they should be able to place in their parents.  One doesn't have to repeatedly beat a child in order to be guilty of child abuse, and that is what this is.