tell me about it

I just received an inspirational email - the kind that exhorts you to pass it on to light up the lives of five other people, if only you care for someone, press “forward” and send it on, send it on, now!

The email praised the goodness of God and stated cheerfully that God was going to do something that day to make things work in my favor, and if I believed it, I should send it on to five other people. While the sentiment was appreciated I decided not to humor the request, firstly because I don’t believe in forwarding mails, and secondly because of this:

The email contains three pictures which are proclaimed to be “amazing”. Though not explicitly stated, the wording of the email and the attachment of the pictures are likely to cause the reader to think that the pictures are a testament to God’s amazing hand working in nature. They show amazing rock formations that look exactly like animals - a craggy stone rhino dipping its nose into the water, a tourist posing in front of a sleepily vicious c(rock)odile, a boulder looking uncannily like a spotted blowfish thrusting its head out from a sandy beach. Such wonder! Clearly, anyone looking at the pictures would be bowled over by how God obviously has a hand in creation. Nature couldn’t possibly cause anything like this to happen without being invisibly guided by an unseen hand.

And indeed the pictures are a testament to God’s hand working in our lives, but in this case, more of Him blessing Man with an opposable thumb and sentience, rather than the raw beauty of nature. For each photograph clearly bears the watermark of Worth1000.

And if you’re familiar with the site as I am, this is probably when you start laughing.

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