The time has arrived for a change, and to explain why we'll need to lay out some background.

After some 8 years of apologetics ministry (half of it full time) it is clear that we are spending too much time dealing with the same old arguments from different people again and again and again that have been answered (and seldom if ever countered, and even then, never successfully) again and again and again. I've relished the reputation as a "mercenary" willing to take on anything within my knowledge base, no matter how foolish, but facing opponents who just stand in a straight line like the British and never move an inch to the left or right is losing its savor. There's no challenge in noting for the 765th time to the 765th different Skeptic that ie, the Gospels are biographies and so no, this or that objection, made for the 765th time, will NOT work, and realizing that I won't get any more of an answer than I did from the last 764 who said the same thing.

I recently linked to Mike Licona's response to the DVD The God Who Wasn't There and it reminded me of all my older articles from BEFORE the objections became so dully repetitive. I didn't need to do what Mike did (he even told me he understood why I gave it such short shrift!) because I have the resources done already and can just say, as I did in my response to it, "been there, done that". The problem is that if all I do is "been there, done that" work, it wastes time and becoming nauseatingly repetitive. Rather than lose my edge to ennui, I will do something different.

Since I posted this item first, Tekton has now made the transition to being a more resource-oriented site with less concern for reply to persons and more concern for reply to subjects. This did NOT change one bit many sections; in fact some (like Classics) are already a perfect fit. Much material was moved over to my much newer cartooning site and some more still needs to be moved.

With this change comes a few new provisos which amounts to a "response policy".

• I will not reply to any persons who merely present the same old same old. I suppose the best example I can think of is Mark Smith of "jcnot4me", who I have been asked about now and then. Though Smith has a talent for using colored and different sized fonts, I have not seen a single argument on his site (within my purview of subject matter) that I have not already answered satisfactorily (whether myself or by a link). The most such people will get is an Encyclopedia blurb noting why I won't do anything on them. This also goes for "old" opponents, by the way. You know who I mean.
• An obvious exception is if said person (whoever) deigns to reply to something here on Tekton. But even then I will look for ways to act like the person doesn't exist and merely refute the arguments…no need to give spoiled children attention that they crave.
• Book reviews are obviously not something that can be handled this way, though if a book also is just the same old same old…same thing. The review will say so. Period.
• Frankly, the only way you'll get me to reply to "same old same old" stuff is if -- I mean this -- I can have some fun with it. In other words, if it is a good candidate for me to put something on the cartoon/parody site, or if it involves someone so obnoxious (like Brian Flemming) that I can have some entertainment value from it. And another thing: Pretty soon I plan to start promoting the cartooning site more, and after I do, one of my tests for replying to someone on the Web will be that their site has to have more traffic than my cartooning site -- not Tekton, mind you! I'll be checking traffic rankings on alexa.com, where, even now (7/8/06), my cartooning site is ranked #1,745,181 (even though I have done nothing to promote it) and therefore already gets more traffic than a site by a certain "Skeptic X" (whose site is ranked in the neighborhood of #3.6 million as of the same date).
• As always though, I will be glad to answer specific questions via email about what anyone writes. And, if something new is presented.

If I had to condense this into one sentence, that would be, "NO MORE STUPID PEOPLE." Enough of that is enough.

I may think of more later, but for now, that's the tale of the wanderer.