Could this be ...?

Thesaurus theorized last week that our blogger nemesis, Michael Eden, is most likely blogging under a pseudonym (I was mildly annoyed I had not thought of this first).  If you consider Eden’s world view and religiosity, his name makes complete sense.  Michael, or the Archangel Michael, in Hebrew means “who is like God” and leads God’s army against Satan’s forces in the Book of Revelation.  The creation narrative that emerges in the Book of Genesis introduces us to the Garden of Eden, or the “Garden of God,” and among the many items, The Tree of Knowledge (of good and evil).  Hence, we have Michael Eden, the blogger ferreting out the evil of liberalism as far as the eye can see (and more often way, way beyond both the eyes and intellect can see).

Eden’s rage and violence and hatred for those that do not share his very specific world view suits his alias quite perfectly.  So, since this is not his real name, I wonder if we can figure out who the real Michael Eden is.

Maybe it is the legendary football analyst Pat Robertson, who recently stated regarding Peyton Manning’s signing with the Denver Broncos and Tim Tebow’s subsequent trade to the New York Jets: “You just ask yourself, OK, so Peyton Manning was a tremendous MVP quarterback, but he’s been injured.  If that injury comes back, Denver will find itself without a quarterback. And in my opinion, it would serve them right.”  While there is plenty of room for interpretation, is Pat’s implication that the bad karma created by the trading of God’s quarterback will be demonstrated by harm/injury coming to another quarterback?  Sounds a lot like the violence Eden wishes upon those that disagree with him.

Or maybe it is preacher Dennis Terry of the Greenwell Springs Baptist Church who recently introduced GOP presidential hopeful Rick Santorum at a campaign rally raging against no longer being able to pray in public (really?) and went on to say (his voicing getting louder and louder), “Listen to me, if you don’t love America and you don’t like the way we do things, I have one thing to say… GET OUT!  … We don’t worship Buddha! I said we don’t worship Buddha, we don’t worship Mohammed. We don’t worship Allah. We worship God. We worship God’s son Jesus Christ … The church needs to be the conscience of the nation [so] put God back in our state house.”  Candidate Santorum blithely clapped along to Terry’s rant and the imposition of Terry’s beliefs as the only beliefs for our country is applauded. 

Now, if we used the right’s argumentative framework for President Obama over the last four years or so, I could make an argument about the company one keeps (you know, Obama’s relationship with a Harvard professor or a charismatic preacher or Weather Underground terrorist).  But guess what, such an argument is a FALLLACY, so I am not going to project the ideas of Terry on to Santorum because this is the inductive fallacy of argument by association, similar to the hasty generalization where the qualities of one thing or person are inherently attributed as qualities to a separate thing or person, quite often by an irrelevant association (thus we get the classic fear, misinformation tactic of guilt by association).

But what I can do is note that not too long ago candidate Santorum stated that the separation of church and state made him “want to throw up.”  The association to Perry is thus unnecessary.  And by the way, why does Christianity always believe it has cornered the market on values and decency, I am tired of their proclamations of what is good and evil and the condescension, righteousness, and judgment by some in the Christian business and the narrow vision they do want to impose on the rest of us.