Yesterday I received a petition via e-mail. I’ll spare you the details but in essence, it tells me that some “organization” has a hearing before congress and if successful, there could be dire results for us Christians, but if we are willing to be courageous and take a stand, their evil plan can be thwarted. Just forward this message to everyone I know that will defend goodness and add your name to the growing list of names. Wow. I can defend righteousness, extol my Christianity, and thwart evil just with a few keystrokes and clicks on the mouse? Who knew that doing good would become so easy?
It said they were praying for 1 million signatures, but did not say what the millioneth person should do with it, or by when. I was relieved that it wasn’t me. The friend that sent it to me was “signature” #882 and the e-mail originated just 11 hours earlier. Wow. That is over one per minute. Onward Christian Soldiers! At this blazing rate we’ll reach a million by June, 2010. (When is that hearing again?)
It must be legit and for a good cause since so many people are signing it. Maybe I’ll write my name, but in the name of goodness, I should probably jot down Kara’s name too and all my relatives and friends too. They’re good people. Surely they would sign. Heck, as long as I’m justifying the means with the end, I’ll write the names of my kids, pets, and The Muppets. (Surely legislators will look at the total names and not notice that #883 is Kermit T. Frog.)
I don’t mean to make light of sincere efforts to stand up for your beliefs, but I am making light of people feeling that they have done something noble and meaningful by forwarding me a sensationalistic, somewhat self-righteous e-petition, and questioning my Christianity if I don’t forward it. Sorry, I’m not playing that game. I’ll try to prove my Christianity the hard way.
The whole concept of e-petitioning is flawed in so many ways. There is an excellent and thorough article on this topic at snopes.com written by Barbara Mikkelson. She aptly references the term “slacktivism.” I think I am poking fun at the naiveté of slacktivists. And I couldn't pass up a chance to use the term "Muppets."
5 comments:
I've received that email several times in the past few years. It is one of those hoax emails. I suggest you start a hoax email of your own, but make sure that you use a dummy email account. =)
A. MEN!!! ~Kermit
If you forward these onto your friends you are sharing their email addresses with whoever gets that email later. Protect your friends email addresses from SPAM by not forwarding these. If you need or want to forward something important do your friends a favor by using the BCC field (it hides the email addresses that way).
I completely refuse to forward.It's an abomination.
When I get these types of emails, I often reply with the link on snopes.com telling them it's false. It's a more comfortable approach than emailing back with the opening, "Dear Sucker."
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