Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Taking a break ...

I will be taking an indefinite break from blogging. If it is true, as it has been reported here and elsewhere, that 200 million bloggers have quit blogging (more than twice the number of active bloggers), you may count me among them, at least for the moment.

I started this blog with hopes of creating an on-going dialogue with my friends about some possibilities in theology that I thought worth exploration. While many of those friends report that they are regular readers, hardly any have commented. So, in terms of dialogue, blogging has proven to be a disappointment.

This is not to say that I do not appreciate my new fellow blogging friends. I do appreciate your support, your ideas and comments, and your friendship. To Steve, Gordon, Jac, Stephen, and my non-believing friends Tom and Psiloiordinary, I say thank you. I have enjoyed conversing with you, and will likely continue to do so over on your sites.

But my purpose of engaging my own friends has been unsuccessful, and the time commitment is just too great to justify such results. And in fact, these posts have only succeeded in ticking off a number of those friends. So, I will give it a rest.

Thanks for reading!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi cliff-
You can count me in on the regular reader, no comment list. But please, you can't leave me hanging like this, I mean, I would love to be able to dialogue, but I just don't have the time.

I'm not sure I agree at all with many of the things you've said, but I'm not ticked off and I am very curious and have enjoyed very much the new thoughts/ideas. I would really like to know the "ending".
If it counts for something, I checked out The Doors of the Sea from the library on your recommendation and am slowly working my way through it, finding it very interesting, if somewhat challenging (he uses a lot of words I don't actually know :).
Please reconsider, or at least wrap up your thoughts for those of us who have gotten in this far.
Jen Love

Tom said...

Hi Cliff.

I've appreciated your comments on my site. I know this blogging thing is a bit of a pain. With everything else to do in a day, I've had difficulty keeping up with my site and your responses there that I've yet to make it through all of your postings and comment here! I'll be adding my two cents to some of your existing discussion items that I have not yet read.

You have thoughtful observations and write well. These are touchy and complex issues and your honesty, convictions, and battles are what many of us have, are, or will be going through -- atheists, Christians, atheists-turned-Christian and Christians-turned-atheist alike.

stc said...

Hi, Cliff.
What you say about blogging is quite true. It's not easy to maintain momentum. I have been blogging since April 2005, and I have started five blogs in that time! Two secular blogs (the second is still up and running) and three theology blogs. It wasn't until the third try that I got the theology blog "right".

I think part of the challenge is that blogging solo is very demanding. The rest of your life doesn't slow down just because you've joined the blogging community!

From time to time, I have approached other bibliobloggers and asked whether they wanted to co-blog with me. I'm prepared to make the same offer to you.

While I would continue to be the main blogger at Emerging From Babel, I would happily accommodate you as a regular guest blogger. You could continue to write on evolution, or any other topic that struck your fancy from time to time. And there would be no pressure to contribute once a week or whatever — just whenever you are able to fit it into your schedule.

My philosophy is, more posts are better. It's difficult to build up a regular readership; the more often you post the better your chances are. So if you want to keep an oar in the water, I'd be happy to have you rowing alongside me, at your own pace.

stc said...

btw, feel free to email me to discuss this further:
stephen(dot)peltz(at)gmail(dot)com