Here’s the deal: rather ironically, on September 11th the Ignition Missionary forwarded me a piece of e-mail penned by Ken that was one of the most stunning pieces of ignorance I have come across in ages:

 
SUBJECT: 7 SIGNS

It is in Revelations [sic] of the Holy Bible, that there'll be seven [sic] signs of disaster before we are judged, damned or saved. These signs are to prepare the faithful and the unfaithful to become. [sic: become what?!?]  What people in the world today do not enlighten themselves to is this.......God destroys the world to wash away Satans [sic] reign, not vice versa. These signs are alarm clocks brought to us by Jesus one by one, in order for us to be given the chances we need to be more like him and save our souls before it's too late. The terrorists attacks last year was one of those signs, the last sign will be World War III and too late.

I'm not sure if 9-11-01 was the one of the first or the last, but you must admit, World War III is in our very near future.

Which brings up an interesting question, is Osama Bin Laden the second coming of Christ?

Don't laugh, I want your inteligent [sic] logical evaluation whether you believe or not.

Ken Dill

 
 

Still, the last line seemed to be a plea for help, so I passed this on to saint, who wrote a lengthy rebuttal deconstructing the e-mail’s thesis.  This led to a short correspondence between Mr. Dill and saint on various aspects of Revelation and the Bible in general.

Alas, Mr. Dill also began spamming our poor saint with every “send this to 10 people and make a wish for Jesus!” e-mails he could get, plus other useless fluff junk mail.  The nadir and death knell of this unabashed spamming was a mass mail to all the unfortunate victims who have ended up in Dill’s address book: a junk forward “VOTE 'NO' FOR GOD” that had a link to a USA Today on-line poll asking if “under God” should be removed from the pledge of allegiance.  Mr. Dill saw fit to include a short commentary with the link: “his [sic] takes less than a minute to do!  God needs your votes!

As most of you know, saint is actually an opponent of the “under God” clause of the Pledge, so he hit “REPLY TO ALL” and sent the following email to everyone:

 

First of all, God made the Universe, so he doesn’t need *anything* — much less votes in an otherwise meaningless online opinion popularity poll.

However, I am actually opposed to the “under God” clause being in the pledge.  Check out an article I wrote on the subject last year: http://www.angelfire.com/yt/branchfloridians/wdu61.html#pledge

—saint

 

Mr. Dill, undoubtedly horrified that someone (gasp!) disagreed with him and then (double-gasp!) let his friends know, sent a message to all his buddies except saint:

 

Sorry this ass emailed all of you, I forwarded a "9/11" article to him and he must of thought it was ok to store your addresses. I'll tell him to erase.

Ken Dill

 

Of course, one of the people he sent this to was the Ignition Missionary, who passed it back to saint.  I.M. then made a REPLY TO ALL of his own, suggesting that they check out the article, as it had some valid points on it.

saint, incensed that someone so obtuse would dare label him an “ass,” dashed off one final e-mail, using the dreaded REPLY TO ALL button once again.

 

FIRST of all, don’t worry; none of you are in my address book; apparently Ken hasn’t figured out the ‘reply to all’ button yet.

But since Ken saw fit to call me an “ass” in his last email to all of you, I will invoke Matthew 7:1 (“judge not lest ye also be judged”) on him, and then drop the matter.

Now normally I don’t associate with people as obtuse as he is, but a mutual friend sent me an email Ken had written, posing the question “is Osama bin Laden the 2nd Coming of Christ?”  

At first I thought this was a joke—I mean, come on!—but soon discovered he was *serious*.

The fact that he would even consider something like that indicates the vast amount of ignorance of both Christianity and Islam he is wallowing in.  Still, I pinged him a reply, offering evidence (Scriptural and common sense-wise) that his bin Laden thesis was drastically off-target.  I suggested the term he was looking for was “Anti-Christ” but it quickly became apparent (by my needing to explain the term) that he didn’t know what that was.

Thus began a brief, albeit one-sided, conversation between us on both bin Laden and the Book of Revelation.  I say one-sided as it quickly became apparent that 1) Ken had never read the Bible, 2) had *at best* a “pop culture” understanding of its *basic* tenets, and 3) quickly realized he was out of his league against me, who (unlike him) has actually *studied* the subject.

Still, Ken subsequently saw fit to spam me with every piece of email he got his grubby little hands on, and this included the infamous “Vote NO for God” email.  In it, he made it clear what his views on the matter were.  I happen to disagree, and believe I have valid reasons to do so—reasons which are based on facts that I do not believe to be widely known.  So, in the interest of fair play, I replied to all of you with the intent of offering an alternative perspective on the issue. I don’t care if you all happen to agree with me or not on the pledge issue; I just want everyone to make a more informed decision.

Ken’s “Vote NO” email is, loosely, a prompting for discussion that we all, as recipients, are a part of, so it is acceptable net etiquette for me to contact all of you as I did.  Apparently Ken is upset that someone dares to disagree with him, and is even more concerned that others (all of you) could find out that he (gasp!) *might* be wrong.  Personally, that strikes me as immature insecurity, but calling me an ass simply because I dont subscribe to his point of view and then made this fact known is petty, juvenile, and the best evidence I’ve seen for the *true* mentality of dear Mr. Dill.

Normally I don’t take attitude from people named after pickles, so hopefully you see the reason for this rant.  Blame Ken; he brought this upon himself, and by default on all of you.

Ken’s obviously not the brightest candle in the menorah—remember, he thinks Osama bin Laden is the 2nd Coming of Christ!—but I’m sure his intentions are good.  Then again, there’s a famous rode to somewhere paved with the likes of him...

Anyway, I now consider the issue closed, though undoubtedly Ken will fire off another “ass”inine reply...

Grace and Peace,

—saint

 

That, of course, seems to have ended it, unless Mr. Dill is still busy looking up all the big words used in the flame.  Especially the premonitionary ninth word in the third paragraph.

 

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