Vox Symposium, Vox Weekly, God Or Not – Canceled.
Posted by RazorsKissMar 29
No entries for the Symposium, and only one for Weekly, from codepoke.
I’ll have the next Symposium topic up soon – but I’m thinking about doing something else for Weekly. The first two went fine, but I’m thinking we need more lead time again. Perhaps every two weeks? Or, I need to pick a few posts in a row for us to respond to, while we drum up some submissions.
I honestly don’t know. Something has to happen.
God Or Not was canceled, as well, with a biting comment at Evangelical Atheist.
wo weeks ago, GOD or NOT 10 was cancelled because there were no theist submissions. Tomorrow’s edition, which was to be hosted at Buridan’s Ass, is also cancelled. Once again, the theist bloggers have shown no interest in participating; not a single believer submitted work.
It’s over. The grand experiment has failed, and I’m bringing the carnival to a close. I want to thank everyone who hosted and participated, particularly LBBP, Chad and Cadmus.Failure is acceptable if you learn from it, so what have I learned from this experience?
1. Some theists (and theasts) are willing to exchange ideas about the existence and nature of gods in an open, intellectual forum.
2. The vast majority is not.
I don’t agree, obviously – I just think that a lack of promotion is what brings endeavors like this to their knees. I’m guilty of this, myself – but I need some ideas, folks. I’m short on time of late, which is why I went to a “carnival” style hosting.
How do we get this moving?
I want Vox to be a regular staple. I wish I had the time to do the promotion right, but I’m oh, so short on time right now.
What shall we do?
5 comments
Comment by BK on March 30, 2006 at 10:47 am
I think that there is a definite lack of time by many people. I personally have been working on a project (completed last night) which took almost every waking minute over the last two weeks. I came here to see if I was too late to post in the Vox Weekly and found both it and the God or Not carnival had been closed.
I find the Evangelical As . . .er, Atheist’s claim to be uncalled for. I found that the God or Not carnival, at least when last hosted on an atheist site and I participated, was disrespectful of the submissions by theists. The fact that we have lives outside of blogging does not mean we are not open to exchanging ideas, but I thought that the God or Not Carnival was largely like two ships passing in the night. What I wrote hung out there without any real response because the atheists took their own tact. I think that there is a failure of the two sides to even agree on the nature of the debate.
Oh well, just some musings for early in the morning.
Comment by Convoluted Muse on March 31, 2006 at 12:43 am
Hey RK,
I can understand time being short. I appreciate your passion as it seems to be in short supply these days. Perhaps thats just in my small part of the world though. In any event I am almost finished with a new wordpress blog, moving away from blogger, and if I can help my dear old blogdaddy out with promotions or what not let me know. 🙂 Best wishes and glad to see you’re still blogging.
CM
Comment by Funky Dung on April 10, 2006 at 9:37 am
I agree that poor promotion was partly to blame for the failure of God or Not, but I think the main reason was the use of predefined topics. Carnivals work because people can submit whatever they want so long as it’s on topic. IIRC, God or Not would give topics for each instance of the Carnival. A lot of bloggers barely have time to write as it is; insisting that they write on a particular topic by a certain date is too much to ask. God or Not might have continued if people were free to submit posts on any relevant topic.
Comment by My Boaz's Ruth on May 16, 2006 at 9:07 am
As much as I enjoy reading apologetic types of arguments, I have heard convincing arguments made that blogdom is not the best place for this sort of argument. It is very hard to do the give and take necessary — and way too easily to take something differently than intended. Indeed, in many ways, one needs relationship for apologetics to do its best work, and the Internet does not necessarily encourage that.
Comment by RazorsKiss on May 16, 2006 at 5:07 pm
I’ve heard some of the same myself, actually. I’ve never found the ones I’ve read very convincing, though. Apologetics, historically, has tended to be an intellectual defense to specific challenges to the Gospel, or doctrines. In that sort of arena, the blogosphere excels, because it is like being able to nail your Theses to Wittenberg’s Gate at any time – and have the instant publication that Luther had to have done for him available at all times, to anyone who is looking.
Someone who is search engine saavy can easily make sure his response to the topic is near to the top, because search engines heavily favor blogs. For instance: One of my favorite topics is subjective morality.
#1 – Google
#2 – Yahoo
#1 –
MSN
The Nazarite Vow
# 12 – Google
#6 (20) – Yahoo
(my former blog has #6 :D)
The Great Evangelical Disaster
#4 – Google
#6 – Yahoo
Humanism Dangerous
#4 – Google
#1 – Yahoo
If you know search engines, you’re basically putting your own Theses up, every time you post, and it’s something you want to be heard, loudly.
The internet is a wonderful tool. It’s all about how you use it. If you write in a style that expresses, quite obviously, your loathing for the topic, it will come across in text, quite clearly.
If you write as if unto God, and you pray, sincerely, that your words will be as those of Jesus, everytime you post – what do you have to worry about? Apologetics isn’t always about evangelism – it’s just a tool which clears the objections away. It’s defense, and offense – but it’s not necessarily evangelistic.
————————————————————————–
Just as an aside; You DO know that this blog consists almost entirely of apologetics material, right?
Leaving a comment that says “well, someone said that the internet isn’t a very good tool for apologetics” – on an apologetics blog – isn’t exactly the epitome of tact – or even a good argument 😀 I’d like to see the articles you’re referring to, if you don’t mind linking me.
Brevity is not encouraged – discussion is good – very good! I don’t have any sort of comment length limit here 😀