Time For God

Here is another installment on my replies to spam emails. This one is titled "Time For God". It begins by saying, "read only if you have time for God". Yeah, I'd recognize that old guilt tactic anywhere.

It goes on, "when I received this email I thought...I don't have time for this...then I realized this is the kind of thinking that has caused a lot of the problems in the world today." OK. So far, we have established that not having time to read spam email is the cause of a lot of problems in the world today.

The email continues..."We try to keep God in church on Sunday morning...We do like to have Him around during sickness....And, of course, at funerals. However, we don't have time, or room, for Him during work or play..." Who is this email from? What kind of God-hating swine would try to keep God in church, to be brought out only on Sunday mornings? And you say you don't have time for your God during work and play? You call yourself a christian? What the fuck is wrong with you?

The email continues, "May God forgive me for ever thinking...That...There is a time or place where..HE is not to be FIRST in my life. We should always have time to remember all HE has done for us." Wait, doesn't this completely contradict what you just said about keeping God in church on Sunday morning?

But wait, there's more. "If You Love God... And, are not ashamed of all the marvelous things HE has done for you...Send this to ten people and the person who sent it to you! Now do you have the time to pass it on?" Ah, there's always a catch. And there's that christian guilt again. Do you "have time" to pass it on? Do you have time to piss off your friends by spamming them with this garbage? If not, then you must bow your head in shame before your God. Is it just me, or does this exactly how the republicans have been running their political campaigns?

So you're left with the faux religious dilemma, spam your friends or spurn your God by deleting the email.

And just in case you're still at the proverbial religious crossroads, the email gives you plenty of encouragement toward it's quest to have you forward it's spam content. Here are some samples that have nothing to do with the content of the email but push the guilt button.

"Notes: Isn't it funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to hell.

Isn't it funny how someone can say 'I believe in God' but still follow Satan (who, by the way, also 'believes' in God).

Isn't it funny how you can send a thousand jokes through e-mail and they spread like wildfire, but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing?

Isn't it funny how when you go to 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 to them.

Isn't it funny how I can be more worried about what other people think of me than what God thinks of me."

And allow me to add my own. Isn't it funny how I can be manipulated into sending a stupid, pointless email just because someone has questioned my allegiance to God and repeatedly used guilt and shame as peer pressure tactics?

Isn't it funny how people who find "time for God" in their own ways are looked down upon by
so called christians?

Isn't it funny how people who sit on a wooden pew for 40 minutes, one day per week, somehow feel they are more worthy in God's eyes than people who don't sit in a church but instead choose to merely live by the tenets of Jesus day in and day out, their entire lives?

Funny.