Oyoyoyoyoy! Once upon a time, when I was still a net newbie, I too, fell for memes. This was back in the days when I thought chain letters only came in good/bad luck, and envelope-stuffing form. I Got Taken In By The "Funny How" Religious Whining Chain!
Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2000 21:40:30 -0700 (MST)
Newb Ocean Elf: The moderator of a way cool primate list sent this and I thought it was really good. :)
Present-time Ocean Elf: *CRINGE!* First off, I ended up leaving that list because it turned out to be run by an animal rights person pretending to be pro-animal ownership.
Second, I actually thought this meme was really good at one time in my life!? Well, it's there in the records, what can I say but OY VEY! What an embarrassment! Apologies to the internet for my gullibility back in 2000 and the chain letters I helped perpetuate back then!
My friend also had the same impression and if I hadn't posted it to the FunChat list I was running at the time, she told me would have. She got it from a different source than I did. Ugh, viral overload and neither of us had a clue back then what was really going on!
And this is only part of why chain letters are so incredibly annoying. If you get it from one person, chances are you'll get it again in short order from someone else as it circulates the net like a bad trend.
Okay, present-time me brings you the mangling:
Meme: Subject: Are you thinking?
Ocean Elf: Much to my embarrassment, I wasn't when first taken in by this dreadful thing, and had no idea chain letters took the form of pseudo-religious spam. Back then, it never occurred to me that anyone would make up tasteless sick kid hoaxes, either.
Meme: Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to hell. 20
Ocean Elf: Not so funny how you think, or want me to believe, that spreading memes could get the world out of hell. Not so funny how you are willing to assume the world is going to hell anyway...Especially since you are an anonymous troll...
Meme: Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says.
Ocean Elf: Actually, lots of historical documents, not just the Bible get questioned, and believe me, so do newspapers. Ever heard of letters to the editor? Not so funny how you jump to such a sweeping conclusion.
Meme: Funny how everyone wants to go to heaven provided they do not have to believe, think, say, or do anything the Bible says.
Ocean Elf: Not so funny how you think this meme would increase belief, doing and saying anything the Bible says. All it does is whinge on and on, and to think I was once wowed by this piece of dreck! URGH!
Meme: Or is it scary? "" but still "" in God).
Ocean Elf: What's scary, (no, make that infuriating)! and not in God is manipulating Christians, many of them new and as naive and well-intentioned and easily lead as I once was, into spamming the net with this meme and others like it.
Meme: 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.
Ocean Elf: Isn't it absolutely mind-boggling how long this incredibly stupid meme whine has continued to circulate!? And in my experience, there are just as many dumb pseudo-religious memes going around as there are joke chains. viral is viral, and ALL of it is extremely annoying, and this type is especially exasperating!
I've gotten this "Isn't it funny" religious chain rant more times than I can count and I wish people would use their heads and stop passing it on! It's a lie! It's a dumb lie! It's an annoying lie! Chain letters trying to beat out their fwd competition, and playing on the "Yo Christianity is being direly threatened by funnies!" to do it is stupid beyond all understanding! SO I'm Christian...I'm not stupid!
Meme: Funny how the lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene pass freely through cyberspace, but the public discussion of Jesus is suppressed in the school and workplace.
Ocean Elf: Cyberspace is not a school or a workplace, dingbat! School and work, if people got too much into religion and politics, the environment would be so heated it would be unbearable! In my experience, my workplace does not suppress freedom of religion! And that goes for several of my jobs. No one ever got after me for playing Christian music in public, so take that and shut up!
And this whine about the lewd, crude, jokes over serious memes is still circulating within so many of these chain letters today. The Shay story is another example of that.
Meme: FUNNY, ISN'T IT?
Ocean Elf: You have a very weird idea of what's funny. Oh, and your sniveling sarcasm just doesn't cut it any more.
Meme: Funny how someone can be so fired up for Christ on Sunday, but be an invisible Christian the rest of the week.
Ocean Elf: I don't know any Christians who could actually turn themselves invisible! I don't know of anybody in the real world who can for that matter! Anyway, I don't hide my Christianity on Monday through Saturday. I don't go around blairing it loudly on my sleeve, either, you don't have to be obnoxious in fact, it's better you aren't, if you want to get people interested in Christianity. It's the same for any other religion. I get annoyed at anyone who is arrogant or pushy about whatever they believe in and try to bully me into subscribing to their ideology. Christophobes are particularly suckish.
Meme: Are you laughing?
Ocean Elf: No, I'm not. I think this thing is a mockery rather than an asset to Christianity and it needs to die!
Meme: Funny how I can be more worried about what other people think of methan what God thinks of me.
Ocean Elf: Well, that's YOUR problem then, isn't it?
Meme: Are you thinking?
Ocean Elf: If I wasn't, I'd still be re-sharing this meme instead of mangling it!
Baby Steps Out Of The Fwd Haze
Date: Sat, 8 Apr 2000 00:06:57 -0600 (MDT)
Meme: If you aren't ashamed to do this, please follow the directions. Jesus said, " if you are ashamed of me," I will be ashamed of you before my Father." Not ashamed Pass this on . . . only if you mean it.
Newbie Ocean Elf: The only problem I have with this stuff is the instruction to forward and the judgment you're supposed to feel if you don't. Now the chain letter scammers are playing on religious people to get them to forward and reforward all over the net. I wonder how many email addresses the originator of this idea has collected by now? At least the following quotes are not a waste as so many other things in chain letters are.
Present-time Ocean Elf: So I was starting to be enlightened, but still failed to see the whole picture.
The whole thing is a waste because it trivializes Christianity and has been spread around the net and back so many times since I first got it. If you're impressed by it, you won't be after running into it several more times as a netizen.
It was a bit of text that claimed to believe in God, how God is what keeps them alive, makes them strong etc. In addition, the very last part of it sometimes claims to be from Philippians 4:13.
But c'mon, that text has been popping up in all sorts of memes, melding with one, then breaking away to flow into a different meme, these things always manage to mutate and swap or rip off text from each other as they go.
And Philippians 4:13 says
I can do everything through him who gives me strength.
To read Philippians 4, click here.
Now stop twisting scripture and their meanings to spread memes!
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