Put up or shut up

Since some of you appear to wish to grace everyone with your knowledge of various subjects from time to time, I think the time has come to revive the old concept of the guest blog, albeit with a new and competitive spin.

I’m contemplating a new feature called Put Up or Shut Up. I will put out a call for volunteers once every two weeks, those who are interested in writing on a specific topic can throw their name and subject in the ring, and everyone can vote on which one is posted. The post should be between 500 and 5,000 words and will be rated and criticized by everyone.

Here’s the benefit to contributing. If you write a post that is given a rating of 7 or better by both me and the blog voters, you will have the right to call “put up or shut up” on an interlocutor. At that point, the individual called upon to make his case can either present his case in his own writing within two weeks or be henceforth mocked as a coward and an incompetent incapable of defending his own ideas. Since it’s the mutinous YECers who are so interested in being able to present their case for their favorite theory of origins, I invite them to either settle on a champion and have him present the first one or collaborate on a piece and present it together. If it’s longer than 5,000 words, PDF it and upload it. We’ll post an excerpt here with a link to the full text.

If there’s enough interest and this works out well, we may eventually expand the concept to incorporate written debates scored by a panel of respected judges of varying creeds and ideologies. But, we’ll see if anyone is actually interested in attempting to present a coherent case or if everyone is all talk.