I am currently banned on Amanda's blog. I think it was because I objected to Candy's sweeping generalization that it was the loving Catholics attacking her family and leaving "vile" comments in her com boxes. I also tried to make a distinction between sarcasm and personal threats, but Amanda would have none of it. So except for my little IP hider, I'm essentially banned.
I did get on there today to find this anonymous comment (all the best ad hominem comments are ALWAYS anonymous) - and I wanted to address it.
Why is it that the majority of people who encounter Elena end up coming to the conclusion that she's, er, "troubled"?This actually has some truth to it. I frequently find that the people I disagree with in great extent do come to the conclusion that I am the one that is nuts.
Now that could be (though I don't think so - I only encounter this type of thing on line and only with adversaries) or it could be that the type of people that I have deep disagreements with have similar thought patterns and all go for the same type of conclusion, i.e. "I'm right, she's wrong, she can' t see it, so she must be nuts." I'm kind of leaning that way.
Does it ever occur to Elena that there is, at the very least, a small grain of truth to that conclusion?No actually I am always surprised and now a bit bemused when it comes up. For example with Amanda -
Me -there is sarcasm in the bible.
Amanda - no there's not - no use talking to you - you're nuts.
Me - Catholics didn't threaten Candy.
Amanda - You have no way of knowing all the people that threatened her and if they were Catholic or not - you must be nuts.
That's a synopsis of course but that's sort of how it goes.
When so very many people are telling you the same thing about yourself and you refuse to hear them, that in and of itself is clear indication you are, at best, suffering from some kind of personality disorder,Yea, I think there has to be some kind of persecution disorder in engaging people of different faiths or political views and trying to logically present my side with the expectation of least being heard. I kind of learned that the hard way when discussing hot topics like abortion with ultra feminist lib types. Then I found out the hard way that it's also impossible with liberal Christians and even worse with ultra conservatives.
But here's the kicker, there must be some type of homing system in my brain that draws me to these places! Show me a pretty little template with talk of home, family, homeschooling and God - and I'm pretty enthusiastic! And yet these are the places I have gotten my butt kicked the most. Hey come to think of it, maybe it's not a mental disorder, maybe I just don't have a very steep learning curve?!
or, at worst, suffering from a true clinical mental illness.Well I am Catholic - while other generations of Catholics used flagellation I continue to try to engage such bloggers in logical discourse. I should probably go for flagellation - it would be easier.
Elena has accosted, attacked, accused, berated, sneered at, lied about, etc., so many people during her tenure at Blogger (among other venues)There's a typo. It should actually read "Elena has been accosted, attacked, accused, berated, sneered at and lied about etc." that would be more accurate. Come on anonymous get your story straight - only been on blogger for 4 years now and even with my own domain I'm still a blogger venue gal.
that she's earned herself the reputation of being a cold-hearted, unkind, unloving, mean-spirited, meglomaniacal loon.
Absolutely. Because if I'm not crazy, then maybe I'm right. And if I'm right... shudder...
17 comments:
She is projecting. When all else fails, go for personal attacks. Isn't that one of the largest complaints about communications about Candy, that it goes personal instead of staying on topic?
I know you're not worried, but I wouldn't concern myself with Amanda either. I don't think she makes the impact that Candy does. Candy has a much broader audience whereas Amanda just doesn't.
Have a good weekend.
I agree with perplexity, instead of staying calm and discussing differences rationally.. what do they do.. they get mean and spread lies.. that does say so much about a person.. Elena has the truth and they can spew all their hatred for the Catholic church and she always has an answer to their false claims.. that is not a good feeling when you are so sure you are right.. so instead of saying that Elena might just know what she is talking about, no way.. they would rather get mean and nasty than to admit.. they don't know anything about the Catholic faith.. really, Amanda and those like her are only showing their true colors.. they are not nice Christians as they claim to be.. what happened to hate the sin love the sinner or kill em with kindness?? I wouldn't give Amanda another thought other than to say a prayer for her.. her heart is closed to the truth.. so just pray that someday it will open, really, that is all you can do. Have a great weekend Elena!!
I agree. I wouldn't give Amanda another thought. She is a Candy-wannabe who has some issues herself. "Projecting" is definitely the watchword with her.
Have a great weekend!
Elena- we all know you're not crazy; you just have the facts, and that makes them go crazy themselves. I am banned too for expressing my opinion. She's the one that stepped into this territory, and now she can't take the heat. It's pretty pathetic if you ask me. You just keep doing what you're doing.
Oh, Elena, I didn't know if you knew this, but Ginger, a Christian blogger, that you had a debate by email with awhile ago had a moment of revelation about Candy's character recently and talked about it at the CIACAIG site. I really admired how she looked at a situation objectively and saw things for what they were and then voluntarily admitted it to the very people she was defending Candy to. It gave me hope that there will be other Christian women that will eventually stop letting Candy lead them down this wierd path.
Don't sweat it Elena...claiming you must have mental issues is the only defense they can come up with at this point...once people start in with that accusation it pretty much shows they've lost and cannnot argue their point intelligenlty any longer ( if they ever could)
I guess Amanda's comments (to me, they verge on rants, but maybe I am reading them wrong?) to you would make more sense if she hadn't deleted your comments to her. The way things look on that comment page right now, she seems to be flailing at windmills.
I don't plan to spend any more time at her blog unless she attacks someone here. It's too disturbing to see a person call herself Christian in one breath and then call readers "fools" and mentally ill.
I'll stay here, where things are friendly.
Hi, I've been reading here for a long time but never commented before. Then I read this:
Show me a pretty little template with talk of home, family, homeschooling and God - and I'm pretty enthusiastic! And yet these are the places I have gotten my butt kicked the most.
The same thing happened to me, but unlike you, I gave up after one kick. This was back before I started homeschooling, and on a blog that shall be nameless I posted a comment expressing some doubts about my ability to teach my own kids, especially as one of them is mildly autistic. My comment was deleted and the blogger posted a lecture on how homeschooling was about the "spiritual life". In other words, how dare I hold back from homeschooling just because I thought I couldn't do it? Details, details!
I wonder if some of these bloggers like to feel controversial, as if they really are battling the whole world -- so they take any comment that doesn't totally agree with them as an "attack" they can strike back at.
Anyway, keep up the good work here.
elena....you are bringing candy's lies into the light for all to see. unfortunately she is one of those people who has apparently never developed a sense of empathy or self-evaluation, and therefor must look to others to lay blame. unfortunately, the confused women who follow her are so caught up in candy's own veil of self-absorption and idolatry that they are just not able to really analyze her background and motives, and therefore feel they must defend her. sadly, by the time they realize what the real deal with candy is, they can no more analyze her motives for her attacks on others than their own motives, because analyzing ones own motives would require facing the truth, that maybe you have been handed a basket of lies, and that in itself would be a blow to your own beliefs and investment in a fraud. it's much easier to point the finger at another person's sanity than to look at her own. they say that those who never question their own sanity, are the ones who need the most therapy...so there you go.
hang in there...hearts are changing everyday, ginger's eyes have been opened to the real sham, i know her personally and she has become fully aware...it takes small steps to reach the top of the mountain....and you are getting there, and we are all proudly behind you.
all we have learned from that anonymous post was that someone really enjoyed their psych 101 class but obviously missed the creative writing course that went over the overuse of adjectives and run on insults.
hug sweetie
karyn
ps: those annoying and anonymous shallow comments are what the delete button and trash can are for :)after a good chuckle and eye rolling of course.
I think you're nuts and it's not because I disagree with you. I think it's great that you are spreading a message that you believe in and I don't see anything wrong with you giving Catholic resourses to dispute anti-Catholic opinions. I'm not a Catholic but I'm not "against" Catholics in any way either.
However, I read this blog because I find the pettiness very amusing. This blog seems to be in a competition with Candy's blog. One the she really isn't even participating in (which is what makes it amusingly petty).
"Candy says..." (insert rebuttle)..."Candy says..." (insert rebuttle)..is basically the layout and it comes off as very obsessive and borderline psychotic to create a blog to discuss the opinions of one person. This would be a much more respectable Catholic blog if there wasn't a tit-for-tat type set up.
Army Wife,
The whole point of this blog is to refute Candy's false statements and unsupported arguments about the Catholic Church. It's set up this way on purpose, to refute Candy's statements one at a time or by topic.
It's a logical format for a blog like this. It's not meant to be petty.
I don't agree with your statement that formulating logical arguments and presenting rebuttals to Candy's statements is "psychotic." This is a mandatory process in formal debate, for example; it's called refutation.
If you are interested, you can read about refutation in formal debate here: http://www.middleschooldebate.com/documents/Refutationhandout.pdf
Disclaimer: I don't write for this blog.
army wife said:
it comes off as very obsessive and borderline psychotic to create a blog to discuss the opinions of one person.
Candy's blog is very popular, and according to the comments section, many women look up to her and respect her opinion. I have often seen such comments as "Your information about the Catholic Church is so eye-opening! I am going to share it with my Catholic family."
One woman said she spent a lot of time at her poor 90 year old grandmother's deathbed, trying to convince her of the evilness of the Catholic Church!
While her comments are her opinion, they are representative in general of false information which is available in different tracts, books, and other publications. Other people really do share her opinions. For that reason, we use her blog entries as a springboard for refuting this information.
Thanks for stopping by.
"Candy says..." (insert rebuttle)..."Candy says..." (insert rebuttle)..is basically the layout and it comes off as very obsessive and borderline psychotic to create a blog to discuss the opinions of one person. This would be a much more respectable Catholic blog if there wasn't a tit-for-tat type set up.
Well I'll give you obsessive. But psychotic means "a loss of contact with reality." and then you throw in respectability. So it seems you have three issues going here. Let me see if I can address them.
1. Obsessive. Probably. It was very very annoying for me to read Candy's anti-Catholic diatribes and not be able to respond or correct them in any manner. Candy simply would not allow comments that disagreed with hers appear on her blog. So I created this blog to reply to hers. It didn't even matter to me if she didn't respond here (I know she's reading). Other people could read here and get the other side and that mattered the most to me. But isn't obsession part of blogging? Aren't homemaking blogs obsessed with homemaking? Dieting blogs obsessed with dieting? Car blogs obsessed with cars? I think you get my drift. Having a passion about something can seem like and maybe even border on obsession. in that I am able to take care of my family, eat, go to the bathroom and work my business I'd wouldn't say it was all consuming though, in case you were concerned.
2. Psychosis - I wonder if you really meant to use that term. As I READ the reality of what she writes on her blog and then respond to them I'd say I'm in touch with that reality.
3. Respectable. I think we've bent over backwards to be respectable! We don't allow personal attacks, we back up our comments with sources, and we allow respectful differences of opinion. What more could we do to be respectable?
And yes, I'll give you that it would be much better to have an actual dialogue, as Candy will never allow that, or only allow it on her terms, we will have to keep to this format. I don't think we're the ones being petty.
I just think it's sad that you've wasted so much time refuting someone who has so little influence outside of a few naive women in the blogosphere. All the many hours you've spent here could have been better used volunteering for the Catholic Anti-defamation League or some other reputable organization. Instead you look like a bunch of petty middle schoolers. Candy is never going to change, but obviously neither are any of you. So sad that no one here can be the adult and just say "forget it"
My grandma use to say that we have to make a difference where we can. It may seem like a little blog wouldn't make much of a difference, but we have gotten comments and e-mails from ladies who have told us that it has made a difference to them, to their understanding of Catholicism and to their faith in general. So it makes a difference.
The blogosphere in many ways is the back fence that neighbors use to be able to talk over but now with so many moms working it's hard to find time for that kind of comradarie.
So Candy says what she wants down in her part of the neighborhood, and folks can wander over here to see if we have a reply and it makes a difference to them.
Surely Lindsay you didn't think the entire endeavor was just to convert Candy did you? ;)
Part of the reason we keep doing this is because we DO get comments from women who say that they used to believe what Candy says about the Catholic Church, but that we have changed their opinion on that. We have also gotten comments from Catholics who say that we have helped their understanding of Catholic doctrine.
We get daily hits from google for the terms "catholic cult" and "catholic atrocities." That is far beyond Candy's corner of the blogosphere. I don't know if we're doing any good there or not, but at least they clicked on us instead of Jack Chick.
I always find this "wasting time" argument strange. I use my free time for this. At other times in my life, I have used my free time for crocheting or watching movies, which also would waste time that I suppose I could use to volunteer. But isn't that what free time is about? Doing something you enjoy but everyone else finds useless?
I'm wondering Lindsey how worth while it is spending your time going to blogs telling them that there blog is a waste of time? Is that somehow fulfilling?
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