Chocolates and angels

[princealbertofb]

And amidst all this worldly kerfuffle, I'm supposed to be off making chocolates with my dad this weekend. So don't expect anything from me for about the next 48 hours.
Love you all

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Please read my thread on BARBARY...

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Oooops, sorry, failed to explain the ''angels'' bit. I received one of these chain letters about there being guardian angels for everyone and if I sent the letter on to 9 mates, the 9 little angels posted in picture form in the letter would bring good news. And what's the first thing I hear? The barbaric story in the other thread. I hope they are somehow unrelated.

[Pix]

Oooops, sorry, failed to explain the ''angels'' bit. I received one of these chain letters about there being guardian angels for everyone and if I sent the letter on to 9 mates, the 9 little angels posted in picture form in the letter would bring good news. And what's the first thing I hear? The barbaric story in the other thread. I hope they are somehow unrelated.

It's not related.

And it's generally a bad idea to post spammy chain letters anyway, and when you talk about guardian angels, that gets into glurge territory and can provoke strong emotional reactions by those who were NOT protected by guardian angels when they needed it, and if they said anything then you would not like the reaction. I'm sure you'd be confused by their hostility, but I'd understand it completely. In case it helps, here's an example of such guardian angel glurge (the last 2 paragraphs explain why it's bad to send these):

http://www.snopes.com/glurge/rapestop.asp

Of course telling people to become spammers to get something good and/or avoid bad things is also very bad. I once confronted such a spammer and she begged forgiveness, but she was really TERRIFIED of the curse if she didn't post. At that point I pitied her and really came to hate chain letters. A child had been terrified (don't know her age, she just came off as I'd guess 11-13).

Please, do NOT perpetuate that. Even when the stories are sweet, they usually do harm to the innocent.

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Not sure, Pix, how they cause harm to the innocent, unless you mean the really gullible. But anyway, I don't put much faith in this type of thing. I know it's spamming. But it came at the same time as other weird things like Joseph ringing me at the very same time my dad was ringing me last night... Two phone lines. Weird.
Thanks for the link, though... I'll try to stick to my (generally) reasonable guns (although, in my defense, I sent it back to two people who'd already had it)...

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By the way, I remember the story with your spammer... She was all preachy on you at first, wasn't she? Then much later, she apologised, and you posted about it.

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Read the Snopes thing now, and I see what you're talking about. I can assure you that none of the people I redirected it to would be likely to believe they were immune from danger because of a spam letter (at least I really hope I know these people). Some will just discard it.

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And yes, you're right they are totally unrelated subjects. Which doesn't take anything away from the horror of those barbarous acts. Sorry if I was misguided to try to correlate these events.

[Pix]

By the way, I remember the story with your spammer... She was all preachy on you at first, wasn't she? Then much later, she apologised, and you posted about it.

No, different person.

none of the people I redirected it to would be likely to believe they were immune from danger because of a spam letter (at least I really hope I know these people). Some will just discard it.

Actually, where the offense and emotional damage comes in is thinking they DESERVED it. I'd quote the relevant part but snopes won't let me copy/paste. Many people really believe in angels and things like being told angels will protect them if they have faith hurt them as even when they know it's irrational they can't help but feel it's their fault, that God willingly turned away from them, that is God WANTED it to happen...or at least did not care...and that it was the fault of the victim for not having enough faith, so it was deserved.

One rape victim I knew lost all her friends that way because she and her friends believed things like that chain letter. After she was viciously raped & torn apart (requiring surgery, repeat visits to a dentist, etc, to be put back together physically) her Christian friends couldn't believe that God would let that happen to the faithful and thus would have nothing to do with her because it scared them to think about it, and so when she needed her friends the most she lost them. And she understood because she'd believed it, too (ETA: not long before the rape her apartment where it happened had been blessed by a priest with an icon of the angel St. Michael and the icon left in the room where it happened, and the name of the serial rapist who raped her was Michael...that screwed with her head, too)...she had the opportunity to stop him as he crawled through the window but instead she prayed for God to save her because that was what she was supposed to do, depend on God, and it cost her...and she not only felt guilt at what happened to her but victims she met who came after her. And when I got to knew her she went into rage fits whenever someone shared BS about guardian angels, etc. And I've seen plenty on the net who went into similar rage fits...not only because it encourages harm in the naive (and LOTS of people really are that gullible) but because it makes them feel like they DESERVED it for not being good enough for God to love.

[Roman]

Send me some when your done xD