Answering a Critic - My Response to the Venerable Ed Baker

Ed Baker.  I love you buddy.  I see a lot of myself in you.  But, sometimes, I have to own up to the idiot I am.  I'm kinda like Joe Biden in a way.  I love me a great cheeseburger, am fun loving, tell a great off-the-cuff story, and yet, time and time again, stick my foot in my mouth.  Damn the cameras!

Anyway, as you, Ed Baker, may have noticed, I did not publish any of your comments under the posts you commented on.  I don't usually censor comments, but, every once in a while, a personal attack makes me question whether or not I want to let one go through.  Your personal attacks were so poignant that I wanted to publish all your comments in a post and answer them personally.  

Oddly enough, I look at what you have to say as eerily similar to how people treat women when they go out and forge a career.  As an example, look what happened to the drop dead gorgeous new CEO of Yahoo, Marissa Meyer when it was announced that she was getting the job.  This point will become more clear as I publish more of your comments below.

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Ed Baker, under the post John Piper Wants to Go to Prison - An Argument for Spanking a Child:

"Wow. I'm not sure what is more disheartening, your incredibly poor reasoning skills... or that the nonsense you'd use them to write could pile up to such volumes. What do you do (or NOT do, for that matter) that allows you the time to spew out these mountainous heaps of absurdity? Surely you must be neglecting some responsibilities in your life, as it's hard to imagine any adult with a full-time job and social obligations to have so many idle hours in a day.

Your post was poorly reasoned, and you waste too much time blogging to elevate your self esteem."

This post was one of my finest.  I'm crushed.  I sit here at my desk weeping.  My self-esteem is beyond repair.

Actually, nothing of the sort.  When a person resorts to personal attacks, rather than reasoned arguments against something he disagrees with, my drivel (as you see it) is frankly much more thoughtful, much more articulate, and much more well reasoned than anything you have brought to the table.

But, let's do the numbers.  Then we'll look at the ethics of writing a blog, should there be any.

I began writing Incongruous Circumspection at the end of February, 2011.  So, to be fair, we'll round that up to March.  I don't want to stretch the numbers and give you more snark to deal with.  So, essentially, I have been writing for about 18 months.  In those 18 months, I have written exactly 248 posts.  That comes out to an average of 14 posts a month or around 1 post every 2 days.  The longer posts take me about an hour to write, while about 50% of my posts are very short, not to mention, one of the most popular posts was exactly one word.  To be fair, let me average all posts out to 1 hour to allow for organization and marketing of my brand.  This means, out of the 13,152 hours across 18 months, I have spent 248 hours blogging, or 1.8% of my life.

As you can see, I have 98.2% of the rest of my life to sleep and make my wife do all her wifely duties and mother my children.  Thus, I'm the awesome husband you want me to be - perfectly in charge, doing only what God intended for me to do.

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Ed Baker, under the post How to Spiritually Abuse Your Children in Three Steps:

"The gospel is offensive to every un-converted soul on the planet. Abstinence before marriage is "weird" to many people in the US and around the world. Racial harmony is hated by many even today in America and certain parts of the world. So you'd say we shouldn't teach our children these things? Popularity of an idea isn't what determines whether or not it is taught, but how true it is."

Obviously, Ed, you have some pet positions you enjoy.  I never spoke of the gospel or anything specific for that matter. I was speaking of spiritual abuse.  Look up spiritual abuse.  You may be surprised at what you find.  Personally, the "gospel" is meaningless to me.  Once you travel around to the 33,000 denomination of Christianity, you will find that the "gospel" is also meaningless to you, as well.  The word is simply jargon.  It means nothing.  If you want to prove a point, I need a missive with a lot of decisive proof, what the gospel is.  Oh...and the Bible doesn't count as an exclusive resource.  I can show you a gospel from Harry Potter.  That doesn't make it correct.

Also, I never spoke of abstinence.  Personally, I think men and women should experience lots of unbridled sex before any kind of long term commitment.  My personal belief is that we have so many relational sexual issues because we attach so much significance to the natural animalistic act.  And yes, your position is purely religious.  I get that.  I am not religious.  Sex, to me, is probably the biggest reason I live.  Tomorrow, it will be to see the smile on Kristine's face.  The next day, it will be the giggle from the voice of my daughter.  Yes, life is life and rules suck.  But for Christians like you, they are necessary to fence in everyone else and make their lives a miserable hell.  I'm through with all of that.

Racial harmony?  What the hell are you even talking about?  I said nothing about racial harmony.  I don't give a crap about it.  I want it, yes, but it isn't on my radar.  I love people and I don't give a flying you know what about their skin color.  Religion is the reason why we have racial issues.  Your God started it.  Own that and then come to me with your stupid arguments from left field.

Finally, who said anything about popularity.  Incongruous Circumspection speaks with reason or logic.  I don't care about popularity.  I have printed some pretty unpopular positions.  Heck, you commenting so heatedly is proof that my positions are unpopular.  Maybe you haven't looked around after removing your head from the sand and realized that many of the beliefs you hold ARE ACTUALLY THE POPULAR STATUS QUO!!!  Grow up and stop listening to the Republican Party and your pulpit spewers.  They want you to believe that you are the minority and are being repressed.

Try being gay sometime.

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Ed Baker, under the post 2 Timothy is not Referring to the Bible

"After scratching my head at a lot of what your write on your blog, it all makes a lot more sense after reading this post.  Please don't give people the impression that you're a Christian. It would be very misleading.  Again, how in the world do you have so much time to blog if you have SIX kids?"

Wow.  And what would you say to a woman who has a career.  Wait.  Don't answer that.  Everyone reading this already knows.

Say I have a full time job, have a family of six children, am happily married, and begin something on the side that all of a sudden makes me rich.  I get my picture in Business Magazine with a wicked suit on.  I write a book about my success.  I create thousands of jobs due to my success.  I fill the tax coffers of all levels of government through my success.  Charity is enriched.  People smile and live better.  All because of an on-the-side venture I started.

Ed Baker, you and your kind would be the FIRST to sing my praises.  You would yell to the hills about how I am a poster boy of why people need to work harder and not mooch off of government.  Yes, your kind.  The kind that mixes politics with religion.  It's obvious with the way you comment.  Holy crap!  I have SIX KIDS!  By gawrsh!

You're a hypocrite and you know it.  You only care that I write a few blog posts because it hurts your way of life.  You have no way of combating my words because they are so awesome, they blow all your arguments out of the water!

Ok.  I'll step down off of my facetious high horse.  But seriously, what am I supposed to think?  You attack but have no substance.  You question my family life but do not know me.  You act like six kids is so much work a man cannot spend a few hours a week doing what he loves.  Am I not supposed to hunt?  Fish? Cook food snobbery meals?  Take walks with my wife?  Seriously!  What the hell kind of life am I supposed to live in your eyes?!

Don't answer that.  I don't want to hear about your miserable standards.  And I never want to see you at a movie theater or spending one minute with your friends.  Redeem your time buddy.  The world depends on it.  Never do what you love.  Never take up a hobby.  Throw away all your toys.  They are worthless pieces of crap on this earth anyway.
  Grow up and get a life.

Finally, you spoke too soon.  You obviously have not read much of my blog.  When I wrote that well reasoned, terribly logically sound post, I wasn't a Christian anymore.  I began Incongruous Circumspection as a seriously questioning Christian and am now an agnostic by definition, atheist in practice.  But my words in this post are true, regardless of who or what I am.  The logic is inescapable.  No amount of magical mind games can break through good and sound logic.  No, the Holy Spirit cannot reveal to me how contradictions in Scripture are actually not contradictions.  That is, unless I decide to begin lying to myself.

Open your mind Ed.  Come over to the dark side.  Stay a Christian.  What do I care.  Most of my friends are still Christians BY THEIR OWN DEFINITIONS, not by yours.  Barely anyone would fit your narrow definition.  I love all people.  Religious or not.  Yes...hehe...even you, Ed.  We could have a beer together and I would enjoy every minute of it.

Ok.  That's enough.  Ed left another comment under my Male Headship post and tried, as the millionth person to do so, to crow about how I don't understand male headship.  Sorry buddy,  I basted in it.  It was my life.  I know all the arguments and how all of them don't make a lick of sense in practice.  I tried them all and guess what, life is life and rules just suck.  There is no formula.

Believe it or not, I am happy - without your narrow rules and restrictive religion.  Ed Baker, move on.  Or keep reading.  I may convert to you to a thinking person, Christian or not, one day.  Try it.  It's addicting.