My laugh for today is this comment, from a reader who identifies himself as Steve:
How in God’s name are you going to publish a book? You work in fast food and don’t have the credentials or credibility to even think about a book. It’s almost insulting to the people who have spent much time and money in their education and relevent [sic] work experience. You can’t just say “I’m going to write a book” There are prerequisites.
I have to wonder if this guy would have said the same thing to a fashion editor publishing on the history of religion (Christopher Hitchens), an evolutionary biologist publishing on philosophy (Richard Dawkins), or someone with a high school education becoming a fellow of an academic think-tank (Tom Verenna, aka Rook Hawkins).
Atheists, when they publish, are granted free license to write about any topic they so choose. As long as it serves the name of atheism or anti-theism, they are granted credibility by their audience of admirers whether they have it or not.
The site that I’m answering in my proposed book, God is Imaginary, is allegedly written by Marshall Brain, founder of HowStuffWorks.com. According to Wikipedia, Brain has a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and a master’s in computer science. This qualifies a person to maintain websites debunking religion? Yet, that site is often referred to as a resource for debunking Christianity by many atheists online. The site has a credibility that it should not have.
As academic layman in the category of religion, Brain and I are equals. No one would take on these sites from the academic community because they aren’t argued from an academic perspective. Having an academic, such as William Lane Craig, I take on these sites would be overkill. Therefore, I’m the perfect candidate to write a rebuttal, since I am an academic layman also.
What happens if the credibility factor does become a problem, and agents and publishers reject the proposal based on that? No problem, I have other writing projects that I am working on at the moment where credibility isn’t a problem. I can always try again with this proposal in a few years, when I will have the academic credibility.
That said, I would like to welcome long-time reader John C back! I hope that you find this blog more to your liking. I promise not to focus so much on Rey’s replies, as I should be taking on the best arguments from the other side, not the worst arguments from our own.
Of course I can see how my blog would pop up for most of those, but two made me laugh out loud. The first was “‘air force 1 plane’ remote control.” Where have I ever mentioned Air Force One? Maybe I referenced the movie once?
