Jesus makes a great chain letter!
Tagged as:chain letter, jesus christ, john lennon, Religion
My brother just sent me an awesome email. I would like to share it along with my response.
Here is the email:
KNOW THESE FACTS?
Death is certain but the Bible speaks about untimely death!
Make a personal reflection about this…..
Very interesting, read until the end…..
It is written in the Bible (Galatians 6:7):“Be not deceived; God is not mocked:
for whatsoever a man soweth,
that shall he also reap.Here are some men and women
who mocked God :John Lennon (Singer):
Some years before, during his interview with an American
Magazine, he said:“Christianity will end, it will disappear.
I do not have to argue about
that. I am certain.Jesus was ok, but his subjects were too simple, Today we are more
famous than Him” (1966).Lennon, after saying that the Beatles were more famous than Jesus
Christ, was shot six times.Tancredo Neves (President of Brazil ):
During the Presidential campaign, he said if he got 500,000 votes
from his party, not even God would remove him from Presidency.Sure he got the votes, but he got sick a day before being made
President, then he died .Cazuza (Bi-sexual Brazilian composer, singer and poet):
During A show in Canecio ( Rio de Janeiro ),
while smoking his cigarette, he puffed out some smoke into the
air and said: “God, that’s for you.”He died at the age of 32 of AIDS in a horrible manner.
The man who built the Titanic
After the construction of Titanic, a reporter asked him how safe
the Titanic would be.With an ironic tone he said:
“Not even God can sink it”The result: I think you all know what happened to the Titanic .
Marilyn Monroe (Actress)
She was visited by Billy Graham during a presentation of a show.
He said the Spirit of God had sent him to preach to her.
After hearing what the Preacher had to say, she said:
”I don’t need your Jesus”.A week later, she was found dead in her apartment …
Bon Scott (Singer)
The ex-vocalist of the AC/DC. On one of his 1979 songs he sang:
“Don’t stop me, I’m going down all the way, down the highway to
hell”.On the 19th of February 1980, Bon Scott was found dead, he had
been choked by his own vomit.Campinas (IN 2005)
In Campinas, Brazil a group of friends, drunk, went to pick up a
friend…..
The mother accompanied her to the car and was so worried about
the drunkenness of her friends and she said to the daughter holding her
hand, who was already seated in the car:“My Daughter, Go With God And May He Protect You..”
She responded: “Only If He (God) Travels In The Trunk, Cause
Inside Here…..It’s Already Full “Hours later, news came by that they had been involved in a fatal
accident, everyone had died,
the car could not be recognized what type of car it had been, but
surprisingly, the trunk was intact.The police said there was no way the trunk could have remained
intact. To their surprise, inside the trunk was a crate of eggs, none was
broken .Christine Hewitt (Jamaican Journalist and entertainer) said the
Bible (Word of God) was the worst book ever written.In June 2006 she was found burnt beyond recognition in her motor
vehicle ..Many more important people have forgotten that there is no other
name that was given so much authority as the name of Jesus.Many have died, but only Jesus died and rose again, and he is
still alive”Jesus”
P.S: If it was a joke, you would have sent it to everyone. So are
you going to have courage to send this?.I have done my part, Jesus said
“If you are embarrassed about me,
I will also be embarrassed about you before my father.”
You are my 8 in 8 seconds. I am not breaking this. No way!
I’M TOLD THIS WORKS!!!!! Bishop T.D . Jakes “8 Second Prayer.” Just
repeat this prayer and see how God moves!!“Lord, I love you and I need you, come into my heart, and bless me,
my family, my home, and my friends, in Jesus’ name. Amen.”Pass this message to 8 people {EXCEPT YOU AND ME}. You will receive
a miracle tomorrow. I Hope that you don’t ignore and let God bless you .
Can I first state how I feel it is horrible to suggest that a loving god killed these people for “crimes of personality.” I mean, god is a big boy, right? Big enough to wipe his own ass and get over when somebody calls him names, right? Not according to this email. Also, I think the real mocking of god is twisting events to match a person’s political/moral agenda, then slapping the name of god on it.
To keep this some-what simple, I will only address the first person in the email, the biggest name there, John Lennon.
The John Lennon Quote is wrong. It is actually:
“Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink…. I don’t know what will go first, rock ‘n’ roll or Christianity. We’re more popular than Jesus now. Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It’s them twisting it that ruins it for me.”
He made that statement on March 4, 1966 while interviewing for the London Evening Standard (not an “American Magazine” as is stated above). He died December 8, 1980. God waited 14 years to get his “sweet revenge” for Lennon’s unforgivable blasphemy? Not to mention that on August 11, 1966, Lennon said the following in an interview after Americans blew up about it (that’s when they started burning Beatles albums):
“I wasn’t saying whatever they’re saying I was saying. I’m sorry I said it really. I never meant it to be a lousy anti-religious thing. I apologize if that will make you happy. I still don’t know quite what I’ve done. I’ve tried to tell you what I did do, but if you want me to apologize, if that will make you happy, then OK, I’m sorry.”
I think we can deduct that John Lennon was included in this email only because of his notability as a singer, songwriter and activist. It was a cheap shot to try to give this email some validity.
In a nutshell, I feel angry on behalf of Christians. It is unfair for one person to be able to invoke the name of god and scam people into believing it might be what he really wants.
I also feel sorry for my brother. I can only guess that he didn’t actually read the email and just forwarded it blindly or he got the same glazed over look as people get when they read the bible .. or he actually believes every piece of shit that comes into his inbox.
Did you know that God loves weddings? He does. For serious.
Because I'm sure some Christian is going to come across this, I'd like to ask them a question:
Since this email is about scaring people into believing in god, would you rather I fake my belief out of fear than express my honest doubts? Would it be better for me to become a person who doesn't really believe, but goes to church out of fear that god will smite him?
Also, which do you think your god would be more likely to forgive: False belief or honest doubt?
God hates fake people. That's why Satan's licking his chops for Paris Hilton.
Hi, I am a Christian and I hope I answer your question for you.
I agree with your comment about folks believing everything they read. Probably if they investigated as I did they would find this email ridiculous. However, you must understand that these folks actually do believe what they are told. If they studied the Bible, in order to gain a stronger personal relationship with God, they would shun all manners of judgemental propaganda such as this. Jesus didn't promote fear factors into his message. It was one of love, sacrifice and a relationship with the Father. If one seriously pursues this, the 'handicaps' posed on Christianity due to religious beliefs would pass away. Honest doubt is something Jesus welcomed. When Thomas doubted it was Jesus after his death, Jesus reassured him. When the pious man prayed in the synagogue out loud, but had no love in his heart, his prayer was not heard by God. The statement made by John Lennon doesn't say much except for the part "It's them twisting it that ruins it for me". How could any Christian send this statement out and then completely verify what John was saying to an extent. Good grief! So, I would say God probably honors honesty before false intentions and you are on the right track. Keep looking.
It seems to me that both the e-mail and the response are just hateful. Any faith based Christian is not going to read the e-mail and believe 90% of it. Another ironic twist is that in the response he says God is a big boy and he can just get over when someone calls him a name......I think you're confusing Jesus with God. God is vengeful and jealous, and He never tries to hide it. He is also loving, but as any parent knows, you have to discipline your children when they're naughty. Ignorance is no excuse for peoples blind stupidity. It doesn't take much to understand that the person who started this e-mail was probably trying to fuel hate from anit-christians, and the man who wrote the response is even more ignorant then those who believe everything they read.
Christina,
I'm not sure how my response was "hateful." I don't believe I pointed to a person or group of people and blamed them (exceptions: original author and everyone that forwarded it) for the email. In fact, I stood up for the general christian community by saying I thought it unfair to have put the name of god on something like this.
I think you have walked a thin line between monotheism and polytheism by insinuating that jesus and god were separate entities. Even stating that 2-parts of the holy trinity would have different personalities and/or emotional responses seems pretty grey area. (Forgetting the idea that a true god would have little or no reason to have any emotional response as he knows all, has always known all, and will always know all and there wouldn’t be any surprises for him to bring forth any response.) I believe you meant to convey the difference between old and new testament god, whereas he gets instantly lovey-dovey and much less “instant divine punishment.” Yes?
You commented that the email "was probably trying to fuel hate from anit-christians." This seems a bit counter-intuitive. Do christians write emails (or do anything else for that matter) that would fuel hate towards them? I, even while living the life of a christian, never came across a situation that anyone, christian or otherwise, would fuel hatred toward them in any way.
I don't mind being called ignorant, but please give reason. If you're looking for any ol' reason to attack or bash me, I'm sure you'll have no problem coming up with a few excellent ones.
Here is the best part:
"Pass this message to 8 people {EXCEPT YOU AND ME}. You will receive a miracle tomorrow."
Ok, I'm on it!
I gotta meet the original creator of this chain letter. He knows the Miracle Rulebook pretty well!
I want to know what happens when you send it to eight fucking hundred people! Will I get one hundred miracles?
Maybe if I could just manage to forward this to eight new people a day, I would get a miracle every day. Shit, I wouldn't have to work for a living!
Oh, by the way, did I mention how much a miracle costs? EIGHT MOTHERFUCKING EMAILS! When do you get your miracle? Overnight!
Well, like any thing that mankind does that email is more then a little flawed; as any one who knows about John Lennon could; through the first read through. However, its a good thing to find faith in a powerful and loving God; whom I'm sure is a God of justice. To any one reading this there is truth all through the bible. Just like in second Timothy the bible says in the last days men shall run to and fro across the earth and knowledge shall be increased. Mankind's knowledge is going up exponentially. Look at the fact in the book of Job the oldest book in the bible the earth is described as a sphere and is hung from nothing!
Hey, if your honest in a person's research you'll find a God who will meet sincere explorations into faith.
To "a concerned man of faith,"
That made absolutely no sense. I read your comment about 4 times. Each sentence is completely out of context from the one before it and non are in the context of this blog entry or any other comment.
Try again please.
nice gut shot
its all good- I am a Christian and i enjoy discussing him (Jesus) when the opportunity arises. I agree with the idea that many folks today twist it around for their own needs- there are many of these stories in the Bible as well and you can read and see how their story ended. I like the comment (not the choice of words) about the rule book of miricles, too many emails say something silly like that and it just turns off most people. Emails don't do mircicles.
I am a Christian as well. Someone sent me an email similar to the one that this blog is about. I don't like these type of e-mails from other Christians. So I wanted to see if there were any comments from other Christians, about these chain letters and I came accross this blog. I have to sort of agree with Matt on this one, believe it or not. Although he could have said it without the profanity and still have gotton his point accoss. Now here is my take on these "Christian chain letters". I don't believe God works in the lives of Christians in this manner. God blesses us when we are faithful and obey Him. I have already been blessed by God without chain letters. It's like:"Ok now I sent my 8 letters out. Ok God where is my miracle." If God hears our prayers, do we really need chain letters??? Just pray for the people in your address book, you don't need to send out e-mails to them. Let's be clear about this. Whether you're a Christian or not, you are already blessed just by the fact you got up this morning. When will we get it through our heads that WE DON'T DESERVE ANYTHING. Anything we have includiing life itself, we have by the grace of God. So let's stop expecting God to jump through hoops for us and also provide us with stuff we don't need like He's some sort of cosmic Santa Claus. He is the creator of the universe. The creator knows what's best for us, so let's start trusting him alittle more. He knows what He's doing.
And just as a side note here. It really irks me when Christians use the phrase. "It's all good". Is sin, good?? Do you think that God thinks, "It's all good"?? It's NOT ALL good!!!
I first came across this chain letter as a blog posting. Whomever started it as a chain letter obviously had a sense of humor and low expectations of the intelligence of your average Christian.
I don't know which is most reprehensible: the idea that "eight chain letters = one miracle" or that people attribute such repugnant morality to their god.
What worries me is I always subscribed to the idea that men create their gods in their idealized self-image. Now it seems that the gods they create are moral monsters and the potential actions justified by such beliefs are truly terrifying. When fascism comes to the US it'll be draped in the flag and preaching that old time religion.
Steve
wow cooleo
We can't expect all persons to carry the Faith. As Christians, we are to carry our own "Cross", as the case may be stated. I agree with the post(s)that expecting miracles is ludicrous. God is the only entity that can perform miracles, anyone else is shamanistic(?). As for you Matt, I will pray for your soul. May God grant you peace, and grace and may his face shine upon you. It is very obvious you have a tortured past and when you can forgive those who have wronged you, life will be much easier to contemplate. Suggestion Read Mathew 5:8