Keith-- I am afraid, my friend, that you have vindicated the existence of the blog with your very post. In many ways, your concerns are right in line with my previous post as to the inherently narcissistic nature of blogs. You seem to have merely added to the argument something like: Blogs are narcissistic. If narcissistic, then unfruitful. If unfruitful, then vanity, and time is spent better elsewhere. Rather than attack this characterization (though I think it right!), I'll proceed point by point. You wrote: For, it is better to give than to recieve, and asking someone to listen to you is a reception of attention. So the receiving of attention requires justification, yet has none, so no one should create a blog such as Mere Orthodoxy. I have nowhere asked that people read the blog. Would I still engage in this particular blog even if no one read it? Yes, because this blog is intended to not merely be the forum for my thoughts about the world, but the forum where my thoughts about the world can receive criticism from other men with thoughts about the world. If no one reads it, fine. If no one else ever posts (which you, sir, have saved us from!) then perhaps your argument stands. By virtue of the post, it fails. You wrote: A really long quote by Dante that is summed up as, "What good is this blog to patrimony? " The temptation is to say "none" and be fine with that. However, already I have begun to approach articles and my life with a more critical eye, looking for insightful thoughts to "blog" and "discuss." This seems beneficial for me, if not for the reader. But if beneficial for me, then beneficial for my friends and family, and hence beneficial for "patrimony"--don't you think the term a bit antiquated? 2. What fruit are you bloggers returning? See answer to above. If the fruits are limited to ourselves, so be it. However, there is a place for comments for readers to interact with these arguments as well. Someday, if we ever have a readership, then perhaps we will see the fruits of our labors. Maybe asking to see the fruits is asking too much. 3.,And to what other, more important activities might you apply yourselves instead of participating in this blog (such as the writing of a totally original dissertation)? First, the answer to this question would not be "Yes" as you suggest above. However, I think the question outright silly. Is my time so full that I cannot spend 15 minutes writing a response to you? Even in the midst of writing what I think might be a totally original paper on Paul (yes, advancing a thesis that has never been advanced before!), I still need to take a break. My argument is that "blogging" provides a constructive and healthy break. Your argument that readers will not find anything here they couldn't find elsewhere seems trivial. If that was the case, then no one ought to have any discussions at all or say anything at all until they had something entirely original to say. The bar is too high. The fact is that readers will read "blogs," and if reading "blogs," they might as well read an interesting "blog," which this purports to be. Admittedly, I am in the midst of writing the most uninteresting post possible. And so I am done. And yes, the logo is excellent. Props to Don.