Hellfire Email from Years Past

When I’m not sorting through emails from the logically challenged and committing other to the spam folder, I sometimes have to deal with the traditional mass-forwarded email. These are easily identified by their subject lines containing repetitions of “FWD:” and “FW”, the hundreds of email addresses inhabiting the top portion of the correspondence, and the message, generally devoid of what someone with an IQ greater than 100 would call a compelling argument.

I received this email many years ago from a distant relative who had made an attempt to get in contact with more people from her family tree. She claimed she was going to be doing genealogical research, which seemed interesting enough, but after she started including me in her multiples-times-per-day spamathon, I blocked her email address. One message stood out to me, and I saved it in a high-tech Notepad file.

In light of the many perversions and jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke, it’s not funny, it’s intended to get you thinking.

Billy Graham’s daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her “How could God let something like this happen?” (regarding the attacks on Sept. 11).

Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said, “I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we’ve been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?”

In light of recent events…terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O’Hare (she was murdered, her body found recently) complained she didn’t want prayer in our schools, and we said OK.

Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school … the Bible says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK.

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn’t spank our children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock’s son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he’s talking about. And we said OK.

Then someone said teachers and principals better not discipline our children when they misbehave. The school administrators said no faculty member in this school better touch a student when they misbehave because we don’t want any bad publicity, and we surely don’t want to be sued (there’s a big difference between disciplining, touching, beating, smacking, humiliating, kicking, etc.). And we said OK.

Then someone said, let’s let our daughters have abortions if they want, and they won’t even have to tell their parents. And we said OK.

Then some wise school board member said, since boys will be boys and they’re going to do it anyway, let’s give our sons all the condoms they want so they can have all the fun they desire, and we won’t have to tell their parents they got them at school. And we said OK.

Then some of our top elected officials said it doesn’t matter what we do in private as long as we do our jobs. Agreeing with them, we said it doesn’t matter to me what anyone, including the President, does in private as long as I have a job and the economy is good.

Then someone said let’s print magazines with pictures of nude women and call it wholesome, down-to-earth appreciation for the beauty of the female body. And we said OK.

And then someone else took that appreciation a step further and published pictures of nude children and then further again by making them available on the Internet. And we said OK, they’re entitled to free speech.

Then the entertainment industry said, let’s make TV shows and movies that promote profanity, violence, and illicit sex. Let’s record music that encourages rape, drugs, murder, suicide, and satanic themes. And we said it’s just entertainment, it has no adverse effect, nobody takes it seriously anyway, so go right ahead.

Now we’re asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don’t know right from wrong, and why it doesn’t bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.

Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with “WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.”

Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world’s going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says.

Funny how you can send ‘jokes’ through e-mail and they spread like wildfire but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing.

Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.

Are you laughing?

Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you’re not sure what they believe, or what they WILL think of you for sending it. Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.

Pass it on if you think it has merit. If not then just discard it… no one will know you did. But, if you discard this thought process, don’t sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in!

Like so many other pieces that I have quoted, I don’t even know where to begin. From insinuating that someone created pornography with the intention of being wholesome family entertainment to thinking that spanking children is the only possible way to offer disciple in schools, the originator of this email has a seriously perverted worldview.

Pat Robertson is a Nutter

Pat Robertson is an opportunistic hatemonger. Anyone who considers himself a Christian should be speaking out against the lies that this man spreads. How do I know he’s lying? Anyone who uses “true story” and “swore a pact to the devil” together in the same thought is off his rocker. Produce evidence to support your vindictive babbling or shut the hell up. Of course, producing evidence has never been religion’s strong suit.

Crass Consumerist Christmas

black-fridayI’ve seen it every year, and this year brought no surprises. People rushing around from one retail locale to the next. Searching for the lowest-priced thing of choice to wrap in thin, cheap paper to give to their loved one so they won’t be thought a scrooge.

I used to work in retail and had a very firsthand view of the mean-spirited search for consumer packaged goods. Whatever delusions of “Christmas spirit” shoppers embody at home or church, they ditch them when they enter the store on a mission for sale-priced goods. I once helped a woman to her vehicle with a large item, and the whole way to her car she did nothing but bitch and complain about how every store was sold out of the things she “needed” (her words). Then right as she was getting into her car, she made sure to say “God bless!” Really? You search frantically for items to give as gifts, and you think that somehow fits in with the Christian celebration of the birth of Jesus? I don’t understand how people reconcile all of these hateful, vengeful, and competitive feelings with the peace and mercy that is supposedly at the heart of the holiday.

Like several other atheists and non-believers I know, I celebrate Christmas, but I celebrate it as a secular holiday whose main tenet is togetherness and time with family. Yes, we exchange gifts, but we do so on a very limited scale. The whole point of a peaceful gift exchange is lost if you fight tooth and nail to acquire some last minute item. Besides, Black Friday or not, you can almost always find better deals on the internet than you can in brick-and-mortar stores anyway.

Only 359 days until next Christmas. So that means only about 300 days before the next phony “War on Christmas” begins.

Have a safe and Happy New Year!

New Conversion Tactic: Lies and Trickery

I found this video at The Good Atheist thanks to a tweet from @deanpence. I had tweeted asking for nominations for a new poll — “Creepiest fundie pastor?” — and @deanpence found the following video to be on the top of his list.

This guy is an Egyptian Muslim cleric named Mahmoud Al-Misri. His monologue starts out innocently enough with reminding Muslims not to be tough on sinners but give them treatment like a doctor cares for the sick. Pretty common religious malarkey. But then the BIG REVEAL! Don’t be tough on them, just outright lie to them and threaten them with torture and death!

If I hear another person ever claim that Islam is a “religion of peace”, I am liable to lose my shit.