Taking the Higher Road

After weeks of blog to blog personal combat vs. my brother, I’ve decided to follow the advice of a number of readers (via emails- a few comments) and disengage from all future personal attacks. This serves a two fold purpose:

1- No further squandering of energy, resources and time on internecine personal warfare with little upside- taking away time from more constructive blog entries and pursuits.
2- A return to the original emphasis of this blog – Brane Space- which was never intended to be an “atheist blog”.

As I wrote in my original blog entry:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2007/12/what-is-brane-space.html

“…..the name for this blog implies multi-dimensional (or multi-faceted) content in time. I will blog on aspects of science (especially astronomy, astrophysics, quantum mechanics etc.) as well as on pseudo-science (astrology, Velikovskianism etc.), philosophy, religion, mathematics and even economics. Most of the time the blogging will simply reflect ruminations on current events, developments or scientific discoveries, but sometimes the writing will embody current worries......whether of economic malaise and dollar decline, or global warming, or perhaps when the next major asteroid may strike Earth.

Occasionally, solutions may be offered, but these ought to be regarded as an aspect of blogging and not based on expert opinion - at least most of the time!My main goal is to provide captivating content that enlightens and maybe entertains as well.”

Unfortunately, in the wake of so many religious –based replies (especially to Pastor Mike) the blog has been diverted from its aim of more diverse, wide ranging content. Bluntly, the atheist emphasis (via my arguments against his anti-atheist sentiments, rants) in so many recent responses to him has turned the content de facto to that of an “atheist blog”. This is exactly what I DON'T want! I want this blog to be devoted to a wide range of intellectual pursuits and interests.

So, my new approach – actually more a return to the original- is to discontinue so many atheist replies or topics, especially anything with remotely religious overtones that concern Mike, or are in reply to him. This means also no further personal attacks on him, no more putting his image up adjacent to Hitler’s or rendering him any other way that may be construed as a personal hit.

This may well be interpreted by him as “concession” (he seems to have an obsession about this) but in fact it’s more about blog quality. By consuming so much time on personal attacks on Mike, the blog quality has gone down. My objective is to return it to its original quality which implies less lopsided coverage of religion- atheism.

The cessation of all further personal attacks on Mike, far less generic -general responses to his blog attacks, doesn’t mean his blog escapes notice by any means ….or that he’s been issued a “get out of jail free” card. I plan to copy all future content and entries that are over the top in attacking any group – whether atheists, Catholics or Muslims or whoever, and send them regularly to the Southern Poverty Law Center –

http://www.splcenter.org/

so that at least he will be on someone’s “radar”. As people may be aware, one mission of the SPLC is to track hate sites across the country- state by state. Florida now has 51 such hate sites, most under the Aryan Nations and Christian Identity rubric.

This way, Mike’s hate remains in the spotlight but is monitored by others whose specific job it is to document hate websites, including those under the Christian Right Extremist banner. But, no more personal hits on Mike, even though he may take swipe after swipe at me. Go for it, Mikey, if it makes your authoritarian persona feel better.

Why did I expend so much energy trying to counter my brother's religious-based hate? Probably because I recalled the words of German Theologian Martin Niebuhr:

“When they came for the Jews, I was not a Jew, so did not protest. When they came for the Catholics, I was not a Catholic…so did not protest….when they came for me – there was no one left to protest”