text: What you describe as the purpose of the block function is accomplished by reading like an adult.
  
  Accomplishing it with a “block function” is designed to - using your Venn diagram - carve a public discussion space into small cliques that talk only to each other.
  
  That is one of the reason why the Disqus-based comment and discussion groups, like National Public Radio’s former comment area, are closing down or becoming moribund.
  
  As to “an image of Catholicism as a dungeon of sorrows”, that would be the impression I would form from your posts, so your point is a bit hard to decipher.