Some Internet Hoaxes
The Internet can be a lovely invention sometimes, even for us Christians. We can send out email prayer letters, keep in touch with far away friends, and all sorts of lovely harmless pursuits. However, there is also magnificent potential for abuse, and I can assure you that people are taking full advantage of it. As Christians we sometimes tend to trust things from other Christians too easily, such as chain letters and hoaxes about such and such a company sponsoring the Church of Satan. This is a bad thing. Not just because of wasted time and disk space, but because it just helps contribute to the general idea that Christians are gullible. (i.e., If these people will believe something like that, then they will believe anything, and that's why they fall for this Christianity stuff.) It can't be a good thing that people think Christians have no intellectual basis for our beliefs.
So. Anyway. I have gotten a lot of forwards from well-meaning people whose hearts or consciences were moved by some letter that some nasty person made up for fun, and this is just not a good thing. So I'm compiling a list of every hoax and bogus chain letter I receive, especially those that target the Christian community. Maybe I will put the Neiman-Marcus cookie thing in later when I have time...
The List:
The
FCC, Madalyn Murray O'Hair, and the Ban on Religious Broadcasting
And I haven't even got started yet!
Well, if you know of any more hoaxes out there, do email me and I'll check 'em out and post them if they're accurate. Addy is hsubox@uclink4.berkeley.edu if you don't do your mail through Netscape.
Little Kids With Cancer
Little
Jessica Mydek is seven years old... Sound
familiar? A seven year old girl supposedly has cancer, and her last wish
is to send out a chain letter and encourage people to send email to the
American Cancer Society (at ACS@AOL.COM, which is not a valid address)
which will cause the ACS to donate three cents per letter (or something
similar) toward curing cancer. I guess they had previously been planning
to use this money for an office Christmas party or something, and it's
up to you to convince the American Cancer Society to use their money to
fight cancer.... uh.... that sound right to you?
Proof can be found at the American Cancer Society's own webpage
Andrew
Parkin's Dying Wish
The following text is taken from http://www.nonprofit.net/hoax/newhoax.html .
The first chain letter has the subject "MAY HEAVEN LET THE LIGHT SHINE DOWN ON YOU" and claims that it is the dying wish of a young boy to have a chin letter go around the world forever. But look at the header....
From: Anthony Parkin Parkin@MayoHospital.health.com
>>>>> Date: Wed, 17 Apr 1996 12:46:46 +0800
>>>>> To: Amy E Nygaard Amy.E.Nygaard-1@tc.umn.edu
>>>>> Subject: My dying wish
This message is a forgery! "Anthony Parkin" posted from a FAKE ADDRESS! there isn't even a "MayoHospital.health.com"!
At the point at which I'm writing this, I am applying to Mayo Medical School, and I know they certainly don't have any MayoHospital.health.com domain name.
John Todd and the Illuminati
The following text is taken from the Answers in Action website. They are a Christian apologetic group.
How many of you remember John Todd, who claimed to have been a "Grand Druid" of witchcraft and a member of the secret high council of the "Illuminati"? Todd claimed that there was a secret conspiracy to take over the world and destroy Christianity. He had his time in the limelight as a traveling speaker in churches and as one of the people promoted through Jack Chick Publications. Todd implicated Christian leaders such as Walter Martin and Pastor Chuck Smith of Calvary Chapel. For example, he claimed that, as a courier he delivered $8 million worth of checks to Chuck Smith to start Maranatha! Music as a satanic plot to deceive Christians. He made outrageous claims based on what he claimed was his "personal experience," but could provide no objective or empirical documentation for his claims. In fact, any evidence that was adduced to disprove his claims, he said were manufactured by the conspiracy. His story was neither verifiable nor falsifiable, and was thus untrustworthy for research.
In fact, his story fit the first kind of legend: Investigation showed that the story was false. Listen, for example, to the contrast between Todd's unprovable allegations and Pastor Chuck Smith's response:
Maranatha Music was actually started with my own personal investment of $3,000.00. The first album was made on a 4-trac[k] tape recorder. The first distribution was out of the trunk of the car to the local bookstores. If we had a $1 million budget, or $4 million, or $8 million budget, you can believe we would have started out fancier than we did . . . . . . Even to the present date [October 5, 1978], Maranatha Music has not done a total of $8 million in business, and this also can be easily verified and confirmed, and any reputable person is welcome to look at the books of both Calvary Chapel and Maranatha Music in order to prove the statements I make are correct.
Pastor Smith's "story" can be checked out -- it has both explanatory power and empirical adequacy, and is therefore trustworthy for research.
Procter and Gamble
This following text is also taken from the Answers in Action website. They are a Christian apologetic group.
We still get questions from people who want to know how to protest and boycott Proctor and Gamble products because "if you buy any products with this symbol, you will be taking part in supporting the Church of Satan." The legend achieved its first popularity in 1982. It includes the story that the president of Proctor and Gamble confessed that company profits go to the Church of Satan on the Phil Donahue Show and the story that the familiar P&G symbol of the man in the crescent moon with thirteen stars was a satanic symbol. Of course, like all good myths, none of this is true, and Proctor and Gamble has spent hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars combatting the rumor.
The FCC, Madalyn Murray O'Hair, and a Ban on Religious Broadcasting
The following text is taken from the Answers in Action website. They are a Christian apologetic group.
And if Madayln Murray O'Hair isn't given enough credit for waging battle against Christianity through her American Atheists Association, Christians are happy to give her more by creating their own legends for her. They spun stories about her petitioning NASA to forbid astronauts to read the Bible out loud during their space flights, about her suing to have all of the United States place names with religious elements changed, and the most popular O'Hair legend to date, that she is petitioning the FCC to ban all religious broadcasting. One typical legend- repeating petition reads, "Madalyn Murray O'Hair...has been granted a Federal hearing in Washington, D. C. on the subject (F.C.C., THE PETITION, R.M. 2493) which would ultimately pave the way to stop the reading of the Gospel on the airways of America. She took her petition with 27,000 signatures to back her stand." However, there is no truth to the legend at all. The FCC statement reads, "the Commission isn't considering taking religious programming off the air, nor has a petition making such a suggestion ever been filed with the Agency." Propagation of such a rumor costs our tax dollars to cope with. At the end of 1985, the FCC averaged 100,000 letters per month protesting this non-existent petition.
Worst of all about this particular legend is that we are being duped by the atheists, from whose ranks this "rumor" evidently first started. Christians are called foolish for perpetuating a myth, and doubly foolish for perpetuating a myth started by atheists!
Computer Virus Hoaxes
These aren't specifically targeted at Christians but they sure are a pain.
There are rumors going around about the Deeyenda, Irina, Good Times, Pen Pal, Ghost.exe, and PKZ300/Trojan viruses. Official-like information on these hoaxes can be found at the CIAC website.
Mail me at hsubox@uclink4.berkeley.edu about any inaccuracies or suggestions.
