The disagreements are many

As the world's first religion blogger Paul writes: "And don't tell me that I have no authority to write like this. I'm perfectly free to do this -- isn't that obvious? Haven't I been given a job to do? Wasn't I commissioned to do this work in a face-to-face meeting with Jesus, our Master? Aren't you yourselves proof of the good work that I've done for the Master? Even if no one else admits the authority of my commission, you can't deny it."

Wow. Seems appropriate. Seems almost defiant. Seems so, uh, Paul.

The world has become a place where disagreeing with the masses, left or right, conservative or liberal, Ole Miss or Mississippi State (had to throw that one in) is enough to have you beaten -- verbally or otherwise

Paul knew a bit about that sort of stuff, by the way.

It's tough, you know, this free speech stuff. I read this morning about how the Supreme Court is weighing the free-speech rights of people who use violent or threatening language on Facebook and other social media. A mad was sentenced to nearly four years in prison for posting graphically violent rap lyrics on Facebook about killing his estranged wife, shooting up a kindergarten class and attacking an FBI agent.

Certainly I'm not defending someone who does that. But I am saying that we have become a society who often disagrees in the most stringent of ways and we've able to do that on Facebook to each other with ease.

Hail State or Hoddy Toddy is now a recipe for the most vitriolic of statements. Goodness. It was a football game, as my wife kept telling me as I fumed (guess who I was pulling for).

The problem is we've always been that way, but now we have new avenues through the most misnamed of all projects, social media. There is nothing social about it at all.

I read a commentary on line this morning that speaks to it all ... "we are met on a great battlefield of the wars we wage against each other. It isn't a field in central Pennsylvania. It is the nation itself. Cities are set to explode over worsening racial injustice and police misconduct. Football players get a free pass on domestic violence. Colleges shrug off epidemics of rape and cheating. Banks and a small moneyed set wage unrelenting war on their fellow Americans. Descendants of immigrants turn against new arrivals and call it patriotism. The question then is can a nation so wounded by its divisions, hatreds and manipulated fears survive?"

And the answer I'm sure will bring about division. We couldn't even agree on what we disagree on. But we darn sure would yap about it on Facebook.