Back to Blogger Comments ...

Unfortunately, the use of more elaborate commenting schemes was slowing down the blog.  So, we're back to Blogger comments for now.  Unfortunately, that means many pearls of wisdom posted on the blog are not fully lost, but also may not be visible to the public.  If some one of your comments is gone and you want to repost it, please feel free.

Google Reader Replacement - Feedly?

I have enjoyed using Google Reader for keeping up to date with various blogs and other websites.  However, Google is apparently going to discontinue this product.  The heir apparent seems to be Feedly, which seems to be able to synch with Google Reader, and has nice apps for mobile devices.  I'm not certain what will happen to Feedly when Google retires, though.

I hope that the 548 of you who subscribe to this blog in Google Reader will be able to find a suitable replacement.  I know I don't always post regularly enough to give readers a reason to come here each day for something new, and feed readers can be a nice alternative to manually going to the site and checking for new posts, day after day, or hour after hour.

Assuming it doesn't get too spammy, suggestions for other alternatives are welcome in the comment box.

Reciprocal Links and the Future of this Blog

I really appreciate the many readers of this blog, both friendly and unfriendly, in agreement and out of agreement, foreign and domestic. A lot of you have kindly put me in a blog roll or otherwise posted a link to my blog on your site. I have tried to reciprocate with a link back in the sidebar of my main page. If you have linked to me, and you haven't received a link bank, please let me know.

I am not sure what the future holds for this blog. I plan to continue blogging to the glory of God, the edification of the saints, and the evangelisation of the unbelieving. I also plan to continue debating, whenever the opportunity arises. I plan to remain pseudonymous for the time being, although I'm constantly aware of the fact that my pseudonymity is something that is mostly out of my hands.

I would love to hear from readers of this blog regarding their, i.e. your, thoughts for the future of this blog.

Google+ Integration?

Blogger seems to indicate that there is some new integration with Google+.  So, if you are one of the millions of people who use Google+, you should be able to get my blog posts in my Google+ stream, if you have appropriately included me in your circle(s).  We will see how that goes.

Recent Email from a Friend's Account

Someone claiming to be my friend and writing from my friend's account wrote:

We're writing this with tears.My family and i made a quick trip to Madrid Spain on a short vacation and we got mugged at the park of hotel where we stayed. Worse of it was that our bags, cash and credit cards were all stolen at GUNPOINT leaving us penniless right now.

It's was a horrible experience for us and we need help flying back home,the authorities are not being 100%  supportive but the good thing is that we still have our passports. we need some cash to settle our bills and get on flight back home. please let us know if you can help.

We're freaked out at the moment..

 

[name of victim and his wife]

Now, I know for a fact this friend is perfectly well and sitting at home on the other side of the world.  There's no possible way this email is true.  It's the work of someone resourceful attempting to trick my friend's friends into sending money under false pretenses.  It's fraud.  Very serious and disturbing fraud.

It's not as bad fraud as claiming to be the earthly head of Christ's church, but it's fraud nonetheless.

Beware!

-TurretinFan

Thanks to My Readers

Sitemeter informs me that since the beginning of records, this blog has received over 300,000 visits and over half a million page views.  I really appreciate those folks who have read and promoted this blog, and I hope that those half a million page views have been edifying to those who read.  I'm also appreciative of the thousands of comments that have been provided during that time.

Blogger Issues

Blogger had some significant service disruptions this past week, and it seems to have damaged a variety of blogs, including this one. From what I can see, the only casualties have been comments, but there may be posts missing as well (I'm told that such things happened to other bloggers).

-TurretinFan

Thanks to My Two Hundred "Followers"

I noticed that the number of folks who have "Followed" this blog using the Google "Follow" option has finally hit 200. Thanks very much to my readers! I hope that the blog serves your edification.

May God receive all the glory.

-TurretinFan

Just Give us the Identity of TurretinFan!

I am ... T U R R E T I N F A N

Thanks, my fellow slaves!

(cue single tear running down my cheek)

Trying Out Wordpress

I'm not really sure whether Blogger or Wordpress is a better blogging platform. In the short term, I'm going to continue blogging here and occasionally updating the Wordpress blog. Unsurprising the other blog is at http://turretinfan.wordpress.com/

Feel free to use whichever you like, though most of my attention is on this blog for right now.

-TurretinFan

More Trouble with the Spam Filter

I have very little control over the spam filter that Blogger uses. So far, it has caught a few dozen real comments (sorry to Mr. Hoffer, NatAmLLC, TU&D, and John Martin for that). I hope Blogger will resolve this, but in the meantime if you leave a comment and it mysteriously disappears, please feel free to alert me to its disappearance, so I can remove it from the spam filter, if that's where it's stuck.

-TurretinFan

Missing Blogger Comments and URI too Big

James Swan has helpfully explained where the missing blog comments have gone (link to his explanation). The bad news is - there is no way to turn off the feature that is causing these comments to disappear, at this time. The good news is that out of about 12,000 published comments, there appear to be only about 24 that have been "disappeared" by blogger's anti-spam software (on this blog at least) so far.

If your comment disappears, please let me know, and I'll try to rescue it from the spam folder. If you simply try reposting it, the spam filter will probably think that it was right, and you're just spamming ("Hey, that's the 15th identical comment: DELETE!").

There's another "known issue" that has been affecting Blogger blogs, including this one. Sometimes, when you try to publish your comment, you may get a "URI too big" warning. That does not mean your comment didn't publish. It just means that the URI that blogger has generated to get you back to the blog is too long for either your browser or some other piece of the Internet architecture. Don't worry about it. The comment probably did publish. Go back to the page you were on and check (use the browser "back" to get there).

-TurretinFan

100 "Followers"

A reader concisely named "zog" has informed me that he is officially the 100th person to follow this blog. Thanks to zog and the 99 others who have clicked on the "Follow" button and followed this blog. May God use it to your edification, or (if you do not yet serve Him alone) to your salvation.

Flood of Comments

Please note that over the next few days you may see a flood of previously unpublished comments being released. In some cases, I held the comments accidentally due to high volume, in other cases, I was hoping to answer the comments and hadn't yet got around to it. There are still nearly 300 such comments that remain unpublished, and I hope to go through and get them released and (if I think I have time) answered - but some will simply be released unanswered, so that the backlog can be eliminated.

A Word of Thanks

This post is simply a quick word of thanks to those who read this blog. I am very thankful that you stop by and read what I post. I am also thankful when you post comments, even comments that challenge what I wrote. If you'd like to see certain topics discussed, remember that you can easily obtain my e-mail address through my blogger profile. Thanks again for reading this blog. May God use it to your edification (if you are a believer) and to your conversion (if you are not).

Only to the Glory of God,

-TurretinFan

Patristics Resouces

I realize that there are some of my readers who follow the blog via Google Reader (or other feed readers). Those who do so may not specifically have noticed that I have two sidebars on the blog: one is a list of links to indices of notable patrologies (collections of writings of the church fathers) and another is a link list of the five most recent entries at Ancient Voices, a non-interactive blog that reports quotations that I find interesting from various of the church fathers - one per day at the moment, although I'd like to increase the frequency at some point.

The current list of indices for patrologies is as follows:

• Library of Fathers Series
• Ancient Christian Writers Series
• Augustine: A New Translation Series
• Fathers of the Church Series
• Ante-Nicean Christian Library Series
• Ante-Nicean Fathers Series
• Aquinas - Catena Aurea
• Eastern and Syrian Patrologies (Various)
• Migne - Complete Latin Patrology (Latin)
• Migne - Complete Greek Patrology (Greek)

Likewise, the current list of the five most recent entries at Ancient Voices is as follows:

• Theodoret of Cyrus: Devil as Means to Changed Attitude
• Theodoret of Cyrus: God's Overall Providence
• Theodoret of Cyrus: Faith and Love Attributable to Grace
• Theodoret of Cyrus: New Covenant is Last Covenant
• Theodoret of Cyrus: Marriage Enjoined by God

Hopefully these resources will help those who are interested in hearing what our predecessors in the faith (as well as some heretics who falsely claimed our faith) already had to say about Scripture. It is also useful for those interested in investigating the historical claims that are sometimes bandied about, and to clear away many myths that prevail regarding the church fathers and their beliefs.

-TurretinFan

Clarification on the Madrid Issue

A few of the folks who read my blog have taken umbrage with my recent comments (link) regarding Patrick Madrid's apologetics forum, ironically titled "Speak Your Mind." Two of those I've already addressed in part in a previous post (link) and another has posted comments on his own blog as well (a post creatively titled "Ummm - What?").

The gist of one of the recurrent complaints seems to be that my comment about Madrid turtling is unjustified, because even if he has hidden his apologetic forum from the public eye he still has:

1) Previous debates

2) Published books

3) Live TV/Radio Appearances

4) A Blog

I certainly agree that Mr. Madrid's turtling is not complete. He has not withdrawn himself wholly from the apologetics ring yet, he's just cut off a significant aspect of what used to be his apologetics sphere.

A second complaint is that there is no way to know Madrid's heart, and consequently we cannot infer any intent to conceal his website even from the fact that he has now concealed his formerly public website. As far as I'm concerned such a complaint is frivolous. We reasonably infer that people intend to do what they do.

Perhaps someone will further complain that the issue is not over whether Mr. Madrid intended to hide his candle under a bushel basket in this instance, but over why. In other words, was it to hide from criticism or not? I acknowledge that this inference is not as clear as the first inference. However, considering that his lock-down of public access to his website follows hard on the heels of his complaints that comments from the website were being posted elsewhere, it is a reasonable inference.

A third complaint is that since Madrid has debated Michael Horton and Robert Godfrey (apparently referring to a single debate entitled: "What Divides Us?" in which Madrid, Sungenis, and Marshner took the Romanist side and Horton, Godfrey, and Rosenbladt took the Reformation side), it is unreasonable to suppose that Madrid would be loathe to interact with my friend who uses the nick "Algo" and his critiques. Presumably, the hidden premise is that because my friend Algo isn't (as far as the complainers know) a Westminster Seminary professor, his critiques will necessarily be easier to defeat than those of said professors. Therefore, our critics seem to suppose that it is unreasonable to think that Madrid has significant limited access to limit criticism.

I understand the basic intuition of this objection, and to a small extent I can agree: if Madrid is brave enough to handle Godfrey he should be brave enough to handle my friend Algo. The primary way that Algo relates to our discussion is that he was about the only (if not the only) Reformed voice that had not already been kicked off by the moderators of the site - and he was kicked off when two Reformed blogs posted discussion of his interactions there. In other words, he was essentially given the boot for leaking information.

In any event, I hope the above has helped to clarify matters. If someone has inaccurately inferred from my previous post that I think (or that I want you to think) that Mr. Madrid has entirely withdrawn from apologetics, this post should disabuse them of that erroneous inference.

-TurretinFan

Response to Nick on "Censorship" vs. Publicity

Responding to my recent post on Patrick Madrid's turtling of his apologetics forum (head and legs well in shell), one Roman Catholic seems to have missed the point.

Nick writes: "I agree with you, if censorship (via difficult registration) is what is going on, then that's wrong and Catholics should not be engaging in that."

No, that's not what I said. There were (presumably still are) censorship issues at that forum. For example, people were not permitted to link to Dr. White or my blogs, and the administrators routinely edited folks' posts (on both sides of the Tiber). That's not the issue. The issue is that Patrick Madrid is trying to hide his apologetics (at that forum) from the public eye: put his flickering candle under a bushel basket, as it were.

Nick continued: "That said, I don't like such censorship on any apologetics blogs, and only after grave violations should someone be banned."

I don't think I'll ever "get" why folks think that other people's blogs are supposed to be a "free speech zone" for them. While I do permit most folks and most comments here, there's no particular reason I need to permit any comments at all. It's my blog. If you want to respond and you want your comments to be seen by all (as opposed to just being seen by the person whose blog it is), get your own blog - they're free and easy to set up. I'll even help you set yours up, if you cannot figure out how to do it.

Nick continued: "I think that to be fair with your critique and not be searching for someone with a speck in their eye, you should not moderate comments on your own blog. I've spent time and energy writing responses to some of your posts, only to find they never see daylight. That's unfair to me and I believe goes directly against the spirit of apologetics."

If you read the link that I've directed all commenters to on the comment submission page, you would be well aware that your comments may end up in a black hole for a variety of reasons. Other times, comments are simply sitting in moderation awaiting my finding time to respond to them. In early January, there were about 150 such comments - and that number has slightly climbed through the first half of the year, even while many comments have been approved and responded to.

There is a mechanism that permits you to comment on the blog post without my getting involved in moderation. That is by commenting on your own blog and providing a link. The blogging software should (and normally does) automatically create a link that directs the readers to your "comments elsewhere" at the appropriate section.

Believe me, I can appreciate that Patrick Madrid does not want to let people speak their mind on his forum - although one might find the name "Speak Your Mind" as the forum title a bit duplicitous. But, of course, aside from the irony of the name of his forum, I wasn't criticizing him for censoring other people, but for hiding his apologetics.

Besides that, of course, I do host a blog specifically for providing a forum for opposing viewpoints to interact with me (link to debate blog). It's unnecessary for me to do so, but it does prevent folks from suggesting that I'm trying to hide my positions from criticism.

Nick continued: "To me, censorship on blogs or forums (and I know of a few Reformed apologetics forms who restrict membership) is a bad sign as far as openness to opposing views go."

Plenty of fora restrict membership. That's quite understandable. Surely no one expects that my local parish of Roman Catholicism will permit me to get up and share my views after the priest gives his homily. I don't have the least problem with blogs (and other sites) that don't advertise themselves as being a free speech forum. What I do find silly is apologetics that tries to hide itself from its critics.

What we do (in Reformed apologetics) is open for the world to see. We don't try to hide our arguments from the outside world. We're not afraid of seeing our arguments addressed in the popular media of the opposing side.

Again, don't get me wrong. There are fora that can and should be private. I'm not expecting that the next college of cardinals that elects Benedict XVI's successor needs to let me in to review its on-going discussions, nor that Internet fora cannot be entirely private or contain private sections. Not at all. I'm simply suggesting that secret apologetics (i.e. trying to keep the arguments secret) suggests weakness of argument and an attempt to hide from criticism.

-TurretinFan

Update: Nick's not alone in confusing the issue. A guy who uses the nick Syzygus makes similar comments on his own blog (link). Interestingly, while Syzygus mistakenly claims I require folks to register to post comments (I do not, though perhaps I should), he also (more accurately) complains that I am pseudonymous and do not post my credentials, while he himself doesn't post his name or his credentials in any particularly visible place on his blog (perhaps one could find them if one dug more deeply there). What Mr. Burgess misses is that I don't hide the arguments I use. They are out there in the open for all to see.

Atonement Debate Continues

I have posted a new essay (the Affirmative Rebuttal Essay) in the Atonement Debate.

Enjoy!

-TurretinFan

A Quick Editorial Note - Quotations

When I quote people who make typos, I generally have five options:

1) Reproduce what they said and don't comment on their mistake.

The positive side of this approach is that I don't get dragged into silly wars over spelling and grammar.

The negative side of this approach is that it looks as though I may have introduced an error into the comment I am quoting.

2) Reproduce generally what they said but fix their mistakes without telling the reader.

The positive side of this approach is that the end product is clean.

The negative side of this approach is that, technically, that's not what they said, and if I make a mistake in correcting, it may appear I am trying to misrepresent.

3) Reproduce generally what they said but fix their mistakes, telling the reader, but not telling the reader where the mistakes were.

This has roughly the same positives as (2), and roughly the same negatives, although if it is clear that the comment has been altered, there should be less concern that any changes were supposed to secret.

4) Reproduce generally what they said but fix their mistakes, telling the reader where the mistakes were.

This is almost as clean as (2) or (3), and removes the concerns about secret changes.

5) Reproduce what they said, without fixing their mistakes, but comment on the mistakes.

This has the advantage of avoiding introducing my own interpretation of the spelling/grammatical issues in the item I'm quoting.

This has the disadvantage of not being a very clean product.

An additional downside to (3)-(5) is that they can make me look like a linguistic snob, which is (of course) not the point.

In general, I favor (5) in contexts where it is hard for the reader to go back and check the original and (4) in contexts like comment boxes, where the reader can easily go back and check the original. I know I've used (3) a few times, and I have used (2) once or twice. I generally try to avoid (1), but I'm sure I must have used it (either intentionally or unintentionally) at least once when speed was more important to me than quality.

Obviously, there are a few people out there who post supercilious screeds. If someone argues, "Don't listen to TurretinFan because he's an ignorent fool," it's a pretty safe bet I'm going to throw a "[sic]" in right behind "ignorent" - if only to make a minor rhetorical point (not to score points, but to make a point).

-TurretinFan