Response to Chain Letters...Send this to X and you're wish will come true

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matthew1624

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My pet peeve is receiving chain letter e-mails asking me to send to X amount of people and my wish will come true or that I will be blessed. Here’s an example…

Okay, I picked seven people who I thought would DO this. I hope I chose the right seven. Please send this back to me (You’ll see why). In case anyone is interested, Saint Theresa is known as the Saint of the Little Ways. Meaning she believed in doing the little things in life well and with great love. She is also the patron Saint of flower growers and florists. She is represented by roses. May everyone be blessed who receives this message. Theresa’s Prayer cannot be deleted. REMEMBER to make a wish before you read the poem. That’s all you have to do. There is nothing attached. Just send this to seven people and let me know what happens on the fourth day. Do not break this, please. Prayer is one of the best free gifts we receive. There is no cost but a lot of reward.

Suggestion: copy and paste rather than forward to protect email addresses and access to e-virus. (Did you make a wish?) If you don’t make a ! wish, it won’t come true. Last chance to make a wish!

Now, send this to 7 people within the next 5 minutes and your wish will come true. And remember to send this back…you’ll see why.

I think this is superstitious and not good at all. I’ve voiced my concern about these and I continue to get these. Any advice on how to warn people of these?

God Bless…
 
Hmm… tricky situation.

On the one hand, it’s encouraging people to pray with St. Teresa, which is good.

On the other hand, it’s encouraging people to wish, which is bad… and it seems to promote a vending-machine idea of prayer.

I usually just ignore stuff like that.

OR! Re-edit it before you send it, taking out the wish terminology and the shakey theology.
 
I think chain letters are a mild form of harassment. I never participate in them just on principle. I think religious chain mail is even worse. You don’t need a chain letter to pray.
 
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matthew1624:
I think this is superstitious and not good at all. I’ve voiced my concern about these and I continue to get these. Any advice on how to warn people of these?
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I agree with bengeorge. I delete about 99% of these things or just save them in a “cute things” archive somewhere. If I forward them at all, I will edit them first to lose any remarks urging or requiring them to forward.

The rare exception has been if I wish to notify people of something personally, particularly if it contains personal information, I might say “if you agree with this please feel free to forward to others” to give them permission but fairly rarely.

I will NOT bind another person’s will to perform any act by email because I agree that it is harassment. I used to feel a little bad about not forwarding them when it was a close friend or relative, but I got over it precisely because such feeling bad about not Spamming proved the point to myself.

Once in a long while I get a comment about how I didn’t forward something (especially the kind that require you to include the sender in the forwarding so they can check up on you). To those, I just respond something like, “I appreciate your thinking of me when you sent it, and I enjoyed your email. I didn’t do exactly as the email instructed because I don’t feel right binding the conscience of others who are welcome to forward it voluntarily.”

A friend I know took a different approach to his wife’s incessant forwardings. He “replied to all” and wrote, “quit sending out this kind of bulls**t.” Crude, but it was effective.

Alan
 
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matthew1624:
My pet peeve is receiving chain letter e-mails asking me to send to X amount of people and my wish will come true or that I will be blessed. Here’s an example…

Okay, I picked seven people who I thought would DO this. I hope I chose the right seven. Please send this back to me (You’ll see why). In case anyone is interested, Saint Theresa is known as the Saint of the Little Ways. Meaning she believed in doing the little things in life well and with great love. She is also the patron Saint of flower growers and florists. She is represented by roses. May everyone be blessed who receives this message. Theresa’s Prayer cannot be deleted. REMEMBER to make a wish before you read the poem. That’s all you have to do. There is nothing attached. Just send this to seven people and let me know what happens on the fourth day. Do not break this, please. Prayer is one of the best free gifts we receive. There is no cost but a lot of reward.

Suggestion: copy and paste rather than forward to protect email addresses and access to e-virus. (Did you make a wish?) If you don’t make a ! wish, it won’t come true. Last chance to make a wish!

Now, send this to 7 people within the next 5 minutes and your wish will come true. And remember to send this back…you’ll see why.

I think this is superstitious and not good at all. I’ve voiced my concern about these and I continue to get these. Any advice on how to warn people of these?

God Bless…
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Delete it, don’t pass it on, I got one of these from my daughter a few weeks ago and I told her off for sending it, her friend sent it to her.
A number of years ago I had received handwritten ones and brought them to the local priest and he destroyed them, he explained that we can’t bribe God, thinking we will get this or that if we follow this formular of prayers.
And no, nothing bad will happen, the priest said the prayers in themselves wern’t bad.
Anyway mine said don’t break the chain, so I did exactly that, “broke the chain” and suggest you do likewise.
 
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lovelavender:
I think chain letters are a mild form of harassment. I never participate in them just on principle. I think religious chain mail is even worse. You don’t need a chain letter to pray.
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Any really good ones I save to a file called “Netiquette Issues”. I also do this with any other such messages (virus warnings, urban legends, Nigerian email, etc.) Why? I give at least one workshop on netiquette to the students on my campus every semester. These make wonder examples of what to watch out for.

If I’m feeling really charitable, and if I know the person, I sometimes write back to them with an explanation of the “sinful nature of chain letters”. Back in the old days, chain letters used to be considered illegal.

John
 
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AlanFromWichita:
A friend I know took a different approach to his wife’s incessant forwardings. He “replied to all” and wrote, “quit sending out this kind of bulls**t.” Crude, but it was effective.

Alan
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Ah yes. Due to the nature of my work, I have several email addresses - many of them forwarding to my home email. Unfortunately, my oldest daughter has all of them in her address book, so when she would forward anything to everybody in her address book, I would get multiple copies of it.

I finally informed her that she was on my blocked list. Nothing she sent to me would get through.

I don’t know if she still sends them or not - she’s blocked. If she wants to contact me, she has to use that old-fashioned instrument called the telephone.

John
 
I automatically delete without opening any email that is forwarded or has an attachment, unless it is something I know about in advance. These types of message have been the source of every virus infection my little computer has suffered. Chain letter are illegal when sent through the US Mail, and if they are not illegal on the internet they ought to be. There is no such thing as promoting a good or worthy object by evil means. No prayer or pious work would be efficacious of done in response to a threat or superstition.
 
I usually say a short prayer right on the spot and then delete it. That way I am taking advantage of the opportunity to pray while not offending anyone. Who’s to know if you don’t pass it on?
 
These are superstition. I particularly take great pleasure in deleting the ones that threaten me if I do so.
 
Michael C:
These are superstition. I particularly take great pleasure in deleting the ones that threaten me if I do so.
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Dear Michael C,

Yes. Isn’t that a satisfying feeling? It’s as if I just crushed the head of the serpent without getting my shoes messy!

Alan
 
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DrCat:
If I’m feeling really charitable, and if I know the person, I sometimes write back to them with an explanation of the “sinful nature of chain letters”. Back in the old days, chain letters used to be considered illegal.
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I used to do similar stuff. Usually, I’d indicate to the offending person that some universities will actually take away students accounts if caught sending them and that they have brought servers down if everyone is “into it”. Unfortunately, I hurt the feelings of a dear aunt doing this, so I mainly ignore them now. I got into an argument with a cousin about one to (after hurting her mothers feelings) She wanted to know why sending it on was so bad. This particular chain letter was, “send this on or make an angel cry” I got my point across when I asked her what would really make an angel cry? Sinning against God would make an angel cry, I said (I couldn’t imagine much else). So not sending the email indicated to me I was sinning… I have enough to worry about with sinning by not sending an email.
😃

John
 
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DrCat:
Any really good ones I save to a file called “Netiquette Issues”. I also do this with any other such messages (virus warnings, urban legends, Nigerian email, etc.) Why? I give at least one workshop on netiquette to the students on my campus every semester. These make wonder examples of what to watch out for.

If I’m feeling really charitable, and if I know the person, I sometimes write back to them with an explanation of the **“sinful nature of chain letters”. **Back in the old days, chain letters used to be considered illegal.

John
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Hello 👋. Would you mind sharing?

Today … I just so happen to get the St. Terese one mentioned above :tsktsk:

Blessings

Joe
 
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