It's A Tool, Stupid!

people who call things stupid may be too close to the adjective

So I gather then Daniel that you are one of those people who prefer the term digging implement to the term shovel.

What you consider to be rude I consider to be simply direct and to the point. Beating around the Bush gets us no where. If you wish to use twenty-five words where one will do fine but objecting to the language choices of those of us who prefer a more direct approach is simply put pointless.

This is the worst, most boreing, useless question ever.
Ok I hate Email, but in today's world, a neccessity...and some day I will clean out my email box...hopefully before it hits 5000.Maybe.

But honestly, if the mods need help in digging up some questions?

terra

On my job, I have noticed that the gradual adoption of email has made everything work a little more smoothly, and faster. In simple and mundane things like basic scheduling and transmitting important memmos and reports, it seems like everyone is more efficiently aware of what is going on and what is expected of them. So, in that way, it is quite good.

But I also notice that people often behave with extremem rudeness in emails, and say things that they would never dream of saying in person, to someone's face, even to a stranger's face.

Although the comments that people make here on this forum are not emails, they are internet communications, a little like emails, and posted anonymously. I have been troubled by the rudeness of people in making their remarks, as though they are forgetting that they are adressing real people with real feelings, and not imaginary, virtual people.

Perhaps this is what has motivated this question about email on this forum.

When people make these kinds of rude and obnoxious posts, what they are telling us about themselves is that when they think no one is looking, then they abandon all morality, and only assume a false and insincerely held morality once again, when they think someone is looking.

I am very sorry to say, that many of these posts are made by people who claim to be Chrisians. Angela, who posted earlier in this thread, is one of them. I have many others in mind, who post often here.

On this panel, I notice that Susan Thistlewait and Pamely Taylor have both addressed this aspect of the question, which I think is worth reading.

I am expecting some very rude replies to my remarks, which I can use as examplse of what I am referring to.

Hallelujah someone Faiths nobility gets it. It is purely an simply a tool like a hammer you can use it to build things or you can use it to tear things down. the choice is yours. Blaming the tool for the choices you make regarding it is stupidity of the lowest order.

Email is only as evil as those too stupid to use it.

I use the the internet as a tool for God too.

This question reminds me of my days teaching Health and science at a Catholic high school 20 years ago. When teaching about alcohol & drugs (in the days of Nancy Reagan's "just say no") I refused to define alcohol and drugs as bad or "evil". I told the students that good or bad is defined not by the object, but rather how we choose to use it. Are we hurting ourselves or others? Time to take responsibility for our actions and stop blaming technology, objects, and religion for our own bad and sometimes evil choices and decisions.

I'm sure chopra gets a joy attacking Jesus Christ using email.

Many this year are going to come into My house watching and searching for Me and many will find me outside the realm of the church. Many will look to the internet and find Me there, many will look to books and find me there, many will look to strangers and they will testify about Me. I will even use the media to speak about Me, says the Spirit of God.

http://jcudell.blogspot.com/

My email with comments inspired by reading http://www.update.uu.se/~fbendz/library/cd_impossible.html

Characteristics that define Yahweh:
*eternal
*all-powerful
*created everything
*all-good
*all-loving
*perfectly just
*all-knowing
*sees everything past and future
*perfect
*infinite

Some contradictions among Yahweh attributes:

Yahweh, a perfect being, created imperfect human beings with the all-loving intention for them to be happy for the eternity, but the imperfect humans spoiled the perfect plan that the perfect Yahweh had perfectly designed.

Then the all-loving Yahweh designed a perfect hell for the imperfect non-believers human beings based on the perfectly conceived justice of punishing the imperfect sins created by the imperfect humans in spite of the perfect Yahweh all-good intentions.

Not only that, the all-knowing Yahweh knew perfectly what was going to happen with the imperfect humans having a perfect free will, but the all-powerful went ahead anyway. The perfectl just Yahweh established eternal punishment for temporal sins, specially for the sin of not believing in him in spite that he is perfectly hidden in a place that the imperfect humans don’t know where it is.

Conclusion: “No reasonable and free thinking individual can accept the existence of a being whose nature is as contradictory as that of Yahweh, the "perfect" creator of our imperfect universe”

Peace and the best for all.

JAC

To my dear sweet heart
A loving email I sent
Unfortunately I sent it encrypted
And she knew not what it meant

Of course she knew it was from me
My email address she knows
And the subject line said 'Love letter'
..Only she could not read my prose

So she sent an email back to me
Her frustration ever so clear
"Please write me again when your sober
..not after a six-pack of beer."

If you are an Horse and Buggy, or Automobile Old Order Mennonite then e-mail is most likely a curse.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Order_Mennonites

Although, there may be a "Plain Text" Old Order Mennonite group that grudingly accepts e-mail, but without devilish fonts and images.

This topic question is just about as bad as "Can you can steal someone's soul by taking their photograph?"

Is it just me, or does it seem that the questions posed to the On Faith panel seem to be increasingly irrelevant? The morality or utility of email seems far from the topic of faith. As Susan said in her essay: It’s a tool. Any blessing or curse derived there from comes from the intent of the user and the impact on the recipient. I find it very useful and less ambiguous than, say, the phone.

It just seems a silly thing to discuss on the forum when there is so much more out there.

HAKELMINOPUV

Amigo, you have obviously, WAY too much time on your hands. Did you take your medication today, your posts seem to indicate that you have not......Try to stay focused.

The Question: E-mail: Blessing or Curse?

Near the end of his life, Robert Frost wrote a two-line poem about iron, one of the many things that can be either a blessing or a curse:

From Iron
Tools and Weapons
To Ahmed S. Bokhari

by Robert Frost

Nature within her inmost self divides
To trouble men with having to take sides.

(1956)

Great for the consumer!! A disaster for the US Postal Service.

Susan,

You need help!

Yeah, I'm really curious as to why this is even a question, especially since there is a ton of recent, controversial religious topics that they could have chosen from. I mean, India banning Tibetans from marching, the new Catholic dogmas on drugs, pollution, and genetic manipulation, heck, even the prostitution scandal has more to do with religion than this.

The e-mail debate was contentious about 10 years ago. Nowadays, it's pretty much just as accepted as a telephone.