Why Edison Gazette Remains My Pen Name

Permission is granted to reprint the following article as long as no changes are made and the byline, copyright information,and the resource box is included. Please let me know if you use this article by sending an email to dje@newedisongazette.com. Why Edison Gazette Remains My Pen Name Copyright © February 22, 2015 Douglas W Jerving. All Rights Reserved. I have tonight been criticized for my pen name, of all things! An atheist Facebook “friend”, with whom most of you probably have seen my occasional light-hearted debates, has looked at my website www.newedisongazette.com and found some new ammunition against me. She posts: " ‘Edison Gazette, Biblical Perspectives For Our Times’ Douglas, I am puzzled by the name.. as Edison was an Atheist.” Her faithful disciple and parrot posts: “uhhhhhhhhh... Edison, like the writers of the Bible, was a plagiarist...” (As a side note, dear Parrot, please give us your evidence of plagiarism by the writers of the Bible. You might be an authority on the ancient texts you impugn. If you cannot prove this with direct documentary evidences you have already made a fool of yourself. But you have proven your ability to squawk.) My atheist friend posts the second volley, apparently encouraged by her parrot's need for a cracker: “Indeed. Edison accumulated about a thousand US patents. 700 of these were proven to be plagiarized from the work of Nikola Tesla.” This is my response: “I am aware of his theft from Tesla. Whether or not he was an atheist does not matter to me, but I think it should to you since his integrity as an atheist reflects on the integrity of all atheism. Of course that is merely an argumentum ad hominem, but you started it that way by arguing against me based on the character of Edison. “Edison Gazette has been my pen name since I was 19 years old. I did not choose it out of admiration for Edison. It had a nice ring to it for a satirical monthly written by me 38 years ago that was never published except for posting on the bulletin board where I worked at that time. Considering those facts, I think the name was appropriate. Are you looking for a straw in a needle stack?” That is the end of that conversation on FaceBook. I am sure she and her parrot will have more to say, but I do not intend to answer any of it because it is little more than an attempt to bate me into meaningless arguments. Now let me make a few things clear about my continued use of my by now ancient pen name. First, I have already for a long time wrestled with the apparent reference to Thomas Edison. I have no great admiration for him and I have no interest in promoting him as a scientist. I have long understood his antipathy for Tesla and his (Edison's) deceit against him (Tesla). In that light it should be obvious that my original choice of his name to serve my earliest writings under the pen name Edison Gazette were as they were intended, nothing more or less than a satirical reference. Second, anyone who has bothered to read my front page on my website will see that my reference to Edison is by analogy. Since it is beyond dispute that Edison was the inventor of a usable electric light bulb, and the purpose of my website is to bring usable light (understanding) to the various ideas I present on my site, it becomes obvious that my attempt is not to magnify Thomas Edison, but to enlighten my readers. My website is not about Edison. It is about Biblical apologetics. It is about what I believe to be the truth. It is about the social and ethical problems we all face in a post-Christian world, and about how Christians can overcome them. And we will overcome them. If not today, then tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. Last, I don't really care what those who oppose me think of me, whether they are atheists or agnostics, socialists, capitalists, libertarians or anarchists, or even other professing Christians. If anyone thinks I have an attitude problem that's too bad. As I said to my “boss” years ago, "If I have an attitude problem you are the one who gave it to me." The truth is what God says in His Word, the Bible, and I am staying with that. There we are told "If they speak not according to this Word there is no light in them." As I have already made clear, the name of my website is merely an analogy. It is an analogy that refers to light equivalent to understanding. It refers to the enlightenment of our understanding of God's Word in the Bible. If you don't get it, that's not my problem. All my words above have been very precisely chosen. They should be clear to the average reader. If you read it, you are responsible for what you have learned from it. As David said to Saul: "The LORD shall judge between me and you." We are both responsible. Me for having written. You for having read. ------------------------ Doug Jerving is the publisher of the NewEdisonGazette.com. You may contact him at dje@newedisongazette.com. ================================= Return to The New Edison Gazette main site.