Comments on: God’s Inbox: Time Magazine’s Mail.app humour

By: God and the Bible

God and the Bible — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 14:36:51 +0000

First of all I find the essay on God’s inbox very funny. But in my opinion the thing that makes it funny is the realization that it is actually very likely that millions of people really turn to God to ask Him for His help with typically human problems, which in the eyes of society at large may seem trivial and unimportant but which in the eyes of an individual may be of vital importance.

Everybody knows the Lord’s Prayer. It is to be found in the Bible. It is also called the model prayer: Jesus spoke the Lord’s Prayer when people asked Him to teach them how to pray:

Look at the simplicity of the things that Jesus asked from His Father in the Lord’s Prayer:
He asked for:
– respect for His Father’s name and reputation (hallowed be thy name)
– a world where governments really do what is good for their people (thy kingdom come)
– obedience exercised by people who will benefit from following the advice of people who are wiser than they are (thy will be done)
– bread ( something very ordinary to ask for, almost trivial in the rich Western world)
– forgiveness ( people do wrong things that harm themselves and others; so common in our daily lives)
– not being tempted to do things that cause harm and suffering (lead us not into temptation)
– deliverance from evil (evil here means everything that all people fear: suffering, sickness, death, poverty)

To sum it all up:
I think that millions of people really ask for the things mentioned in God’s inbox. And there is nothing wrong with it: very human, very funny, but also very realistic. I think that people really pray that way. And that is OK.

By: Stan

Stan — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 17:18:10 +0000

It’s funny

By: C h a r l : e

C h a r l : e — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 04:42:36 +0000

Mail2God…

Ook God krijgt email…

……

By: koke

koke — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 00:17:46 +0000

It might not be a fake. You can use QuickSilver with the menubar icon hidden, so it may be running in the background. Very funny indeed

By: Alan Jacobs

Alan Jacobs — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 23:43:53 +0000

>All I can say is â€œI want His spam filterâ€.

By: David

David — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 19:06:08 +0000

Where are all the image based emails touting penny stocks? the ads for enlarging body parts? the ones for reducing the size of other body parts? the mail-order university diplomas? the Nigerian millionaires offering to give you their money if you send a little of your own first? and all the completely empty messages with friendly subject lines used to confirm a working address in preparation for all of the above?

All I can say is “I want His spam filter”.

By: David

David — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 17:39:12 +0000

How do you spell Blasphemy again ?

By: Tim

Tim — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 15:17:18 +0000

Michael writes “Richard Dawkins would be mailing from a .ac.uk address.”

No he wouldn’t – after all, with apologies to Psalm 100, “it is us that made ourselves, not God”, so he’d be using his richarddawkins.net domain for the purpose ;)

By: Michael Houghton

Michael Houghton — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 15:13:51 +0000

Of course it’s a fake. Richard Dawkins would be mailing from a .ac.uk address. ;)

By: jeff

jeff — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 13:10:53 +0000

You think it’s a fake? Really? Or is this just your way of telling me that you’re not going to share His email address?

What troubles me is that it appears that God uses Quark XPress. Who still uses Quark by choice?