Spamming Obama
Last night my wife received a forwarded email from a friend WARNING us of IMPORTANT (caps are from the email) information regarding Sen. Obama. The email contained the usual clap-trap about how Obama is a radical muslim, won't say the pledge, and took the oath of office on the Koran. This was not the first time she had gotten nor will it most likely be the last.
My question is this, when did we become lemmings? When did it become OK to blindly pass on information without doing any kind of verification at all? 90% of the claims in this email are blatantly false and the other 10% are misleading at best, yet the email continues to make the rounds. Unfortunately it seems to be sent to great extent by Christians.
The best part of the email is where it tells you that it has been checked out on snopes.com, the email even gives you a link. Now I love snopes.com, but obviously the creator of this email is counting on the readers apathy towards knowledge and won't verify it for themselves. If you go to snopes.com and type obama in the search bar, the first link you are given actually refutes every fact in the email showing them to be false.
Things like this make me wish there was some kind of test required for voting.
I've said this before, but it bears repeating. There are enough reasons not to vote for Sen. Obama without spreading lies and innuendo about him.
We have an obligation as Believers to be above this sort of thing. Our Pastors have been taking us through the book of 1 Peter. As Pastor Brian wrapped up the series yesterday, he encouraged us to share how we have been impacted by God's Word in 1 Peter. I was so encouraged by one gentleman who had been convicted about how he talked and thought about the various Presidential candidates. Amen to that. Certainly we can disagree, but in that disagreement we should be modeling 1 Peter 2:13-17.
Sadly, this email misses that mark completely.
My question is this, when did we become lemmings? When did it become OK to blindly pass on information without doing any kind of verification at all? 90% of the claims in this email are blatantly false and the other 10% are misleading at best, yet the email continues to make the rounds. Unfortunately it seems to be sent to great extent by Christians.
The best part of the email is where it tells you that it has been checked out on snopes.com, the email even gives you a link. Now I love snopes.com, but obviously the creator of this email is counting on the readers apathy towards knowledge and won't verify it for themselves. If you go to snopes.com and type obama in the search bar, the first link you are given actually refutes every fact in the email showing them to be false.
Things like this make me wish there was some kind of test required for voting.
I've said this before, but it bears repeating. There are enough reasons not to vote for Sen. Obama without spreading lies and innuendo about him.
We have an obligation as Believers to be above this sort of thing. Our Pastors have been taking us through the book of 1 Peter. As Pastor Brian wrapped up the series yesterday, he encouraged us to share how we have been impacted by God's Word in 1 Peter. I was so encouraged by one gentleman who had been convicted about how he talked and thought about the various Presidential candidates. Amen to that. Certainly we can disagree, but in that disagreement we should be modeling 1 Peter 2:13-17.
Sadly, this email misses that mark completely.
Thank you! This is a topic that has driven me crazy for years...whether it be spreading slanderous lies about presidential candidates or authors (think J.K. Rowling), we should be making absolutely sure that whatever we send to others is factual before we hit that send key...
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