Dear Alan,

You are right. I was wrong. I am sorry.

Technorati Tags: anger, confession

The sad part is, I knew I was angry and frustrated with your previous response when I wrote “Ashes to Ashes.” I thought I had worked through my anger enough to generate a constructive and emotionally neutral post, but from your response it is clear I hadn’t.

At any rate, I have been heeding your admonition to “take care of [my] own speck.” One of things I’ve learned the hard way — though I seem to keep needing to relearn it — is that when I am angry, I become:

• hyper-aware of flaws in the object of my anger
• totally oblivious to my own (usually corresponding) failings
• fixated on eliminating the perceive cause

To be sure, there are some evolutionary (even spirtiual!) advantages to such a reaction — but only as an initial reaction. As I like to say, “anger is a great stop sign, but a lousy street sign”: it tells you that something is wrong, but not where.

In this case, I concede that the underlying problem is mine: I had some fundamentally mistaken assumptions about the issues of our diablogue and the optimal means for resolving them (which, in my defense, I did realize; which is why I felt the need to “repent” of my current approach). I also apologize for not being sufficiently clear about when I was actively defending an assertion vs. merely trying to establish neutral ground rules, as well as not clearly distinguishing between different uses of the term “metric.”

Finally, I do completely “understand how a person who makes this kind of transition would feel hurt and angry.” I actually empathize with Sam Harris’s (great blogalogue, btw, thanks for the link) lament about those betrayed by Christian lies. I don’t think I’ve ever attempted to express the extent of my own anger at Christian folly; perhaps I should.

So, the bottom line is: I concede. Clearly, the direction I was pursuing had become frustrating for both of us. Worse, I blamed you for a situation I created, while committing the same sin I accused you of.

That was wrong. I was wrong. I am sorry.

Will you forgive me?

How can I make it up to you?

Contritely yours,
Ernie Prabhakar