Selfie (January 2013)
This is the calculation since August 2015, when I arrived at Patheos: from Google Analytics, which tallies page views and lots of other things. Numbers for page views provide an indication of exactly what most interests folks with regard to Catholic apologetics. What’s fascinating to ponder also is the relative importance of a catchy title, to draw people in (much like headlines and column titles in newspapers). It appears that numbers in a title helps a lot (see #3, 4, 9, 10, 14, 20).
My dual goal is to try to educate people in the faith and defense of it in an “all-around” way; yet “please the customer” too, so they’ll be happy, will come back to my writing, and so I can make a few more dollars (emphasis on few!) along the way, to feed my family and pay the bills. It’s a balance. Both things are important. To a large extent, apologetics is “market-driven” just as everything else that involves competition is. I’m trying to get people to read my stuff, on an Internet where there are many hundreds of choices, even within just the Catholic world.
Obviously, every writer hopes that his readers will keep coming back to him, based on the quality of the writing itself. If they keep comin’ back, it’s workin’; if one can’t achieve “loyalty” among readers, then it ain’t workin’: not in terms of it being a successful full-time vocation / occupation.
Dates are for when each piece was posted at Patheos. Many of the posts, however, were actually written quite some time ago.
1. Posture During the “Our Father” & the Rubrics (12-4-15)
2. Why Didn’t C. S. Lewis Become a Catholic? (8-31-15)
3. 150 Reasons Why I am a Catholic (10-12-15)
4. 25 Bible Passages on Purgatory (11-6-15)
5. Atheism: More Rational & Scientific than Christianity? (10-27-15)
6. Michael Voris on Benedict’s “Immoral” Resignation, Questionable Illness (12-15-15)
7. The Atheist Obsession with Insulting Christians (9-15-15)
8. Atheism: The Faith of “Atomism” (8-19-15)
9. Top 15 “Catholic” Beliefs of John Calvin (8-22-15)
10. Top Ten Remarkable “Catholic” Beliefs of Martin Luther (8-13-15)
11. Sodom & Gomorrah & Archaeology: North of the Dead Sea? (9-29-15)
12. Jesus, in Effect, Used Abortion as a Direct Metaphor for Hell (8-15-15)
13. Chris Ferrara vs. Pope Benedict XVI (New Mass) (12-18-15)
14. “50-68 Million” Killed in the Inquisition? (8-21-15)
15. Blind Faith? Dialogue with an Atheist (10-25-15)
16. Catholic Sexuality: A “Nutshell” Explanation (12-29-15)
17. Was Philosopher David Hume an Atheist? (10-7-15)
18. Communion in the Hand, Standing (Norm Till 500-900 AD) (9-3-15)
19. Altar Girls: Pro and Con (9-4-15)
20. Why 7 More Books in Catholic Bibles? (9-14-15)
* * * * *
Subject Matter:
Catholic Apologetics / Biblical Archaeology [2-4, 11, 14, 16, 20] 7
Atheism / Philosophy of Religion [5, 7-8, 15, 17] 5
Liturgy / Traditionalism / Radical Catholic Reactionaries [1, 6, 13, 18-19] 5
Protestantism / “Reformation” [9-10] 2
Sexuality [16] 1
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