Our re-scheduled DL today got some folks talking over on the Catholic Answers Forums. Just a note to the guy who thinks I should spend my time posting over there: even if that was a possibility (it isn’t: look at this just to see the next month and a half), for some reason I can’t log in anymore; repeated requests for my password have been ignored, and two attempts to register using valid e-mail addresses have produced no results. Evidently, I’m persona-non-grata anyway. Be that as it may, JPrejean opined, “Then why can’t he say it to a person’s face? Why would he hide behind a microphone when he could actually address people directly?” You mean like in my debates? Or like folks on the CA Forums accuse me of every kind of sinful attitude short of pulling the wings off of butterflies without the slightest bit of personal knowledge of me? In case you hadn’t noticed, when I do the Dividing Line we have this thing called a toll-free phone number (877-753-3341). Feel free to call in! This person continues, “he whines on his own blog (again with no comments allowed) rather than making use of the comment function on theirs.” Ah, I see. I didn’t read the “how to engage in ad-hominem on blogs” rules. No, we are low-tech, and even when we go high-tech (yeah, RSS and all, it’s coming) my blog does not exist to create opportunities for endlessly wasting my time replying to this kind of stuff. Put up your own blog and see if folks will take the time to read it. But it is truly amazing that given how available I make myself in general (how many other folks do something like the DL and take calls on a regular basis?) that this kind of complaint could be made. And it is ironic, in light of the number of RC apologists I have debated since 1990, and how many others will not take up my challenge, that this writer can add, “He’ll boast all day about how much conviction he has in his position, but when somebody actually throws down the gauntlet, he never has enough time to take the challenge (although somehow he always seems to have enough time to cry on his blog about it).” And then, “Maybe I’m just a dumb Southerner, but it works on my last nerve that White will never challenge a statement in the forum where the statement was made, even though he has every opportunity to do so. To me, that’s just yellow-bellied.” It is hard to take that kind of rhetoric seriously, but having just returned from Texas, I’d like to invite this brave Texan to have the courage of his convictions and give me a ring. The next Dividing Line is Tuesday, 1pm central time, and the number is 877-753-3341. And as they say down in Texas, bring your six-shooter, and don’t load it with blanks.
Then again, maybe Scott Waddell will call in and defend this piece of brilliance, also posted in that thread:
Everyone would be much better off it they put White in the same category as the Raelians–fringe elements who don’t have anything to say that is worth expending mental energy contemplating.
Anyone want to take bets on whether ol’ Scott could provide the first bit of meaningful interaction with, say, three or four chapters of The God Who Justifies? Better bet…that he has ever read anything I’ve written?
Oh, speaking of having been in Texas, there was a pickup truck in the parking lot (like that’s unusual in Texas) that had this great bumper sticker on it. It said, “Yanks 1, Rebels 0, Half-time.” Only in Texas! Well, and Georgia and Virginia and….
