Ever since Senator Obama has announced his intention for seeking the Democratic nomination for the President of the United States, there have been a large group of people who have constantly sent out viral emails that smear Obama in almost every way imaginable. I've seen them dozens, maybe hundreds of times.
They usually come from people who consider themselves religious, and I have been answering them recently with a very effective method. I've even received emails back from various people I don't even know promising me that they will never forward another anti-Obama email ever again.
Follow me below the fold for what my responses to these emails are and why they seem to be effective.
Like I said, the people who are sending out these emails consider themselves to be religious people, so here is the response I send out. I edit it based on what the email says, but this basically has worked for every email.
Dear [Sir or Madam],
People shouldn't send out slanderous emails that are lies. It's not only not right and leads to people believing lies, but it's immoral and a sin. "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor", the 8th Commandment. People control themselves as to what they choose to do. If people passed around mass emails accusing you or one of your family members of beating your kids and it was a lie would that be ok?
Not only is this breaking the 8th Commandment, but once you know that these emails are lies and still forward them, it's mortal sin.
A Mortal sin is, unless confessed and absolved (or at least sacramental confession is willed if not available), condemns a person's soul to Hell after death. These sins are considered "mortal" because they constitute a rupture in a person's link to God's saving grace: the person's soul becomes "dead", not merely weakened. The phrase is used in I John 5.16 17: "If you see your brother or sister committing what is not a mortal sin, you will ask, and God will give life to such a one to those whose sin is not mortal. There is sin that is mortal; I do not say you should pray about that. All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that is not mortal." (NRSV)
In Roman Catholic moral theology, a mortal sin, as distinct from a venial sin, must meet all of the following conditions:
1. its subject must be a grave (or serious) matter; 2. it must be committed with full knowledge, both of the sin and of the gravity of the offense (though nobody is deemed to be ignorant of the moral law, embedded into the conciences of every human being); 3. it must be committed with deliberate and complete consent, enough for it to have been a personal decision to commit the sin.
I can respect people having different views on different issues, even if I disagree with them. I cannot respect people having their own 'facts' that are in fact not facts, but lies, and spreading them all over the internet. Here is the actual truth about Senator Obama and [insert the subject of the email and a link disproving the lie].
As for the [insert lie], that's just not true. Democrats, and specifically Senator Obama, want [insert truth]. He wants to [insert more truth].
Like I said, you can have your own views. But let's stick to the facts and not make up stuff.
Please check each email you receive with snopes.com, they are an unbiased website that is dedicated to providing the truth to people and debunking these kinds of urban legends that slander people.
Take care and God Bless you,
Dave
I have a lot of Catholic family and friends(since I'm Catholic), but you can change it around if you are more familiar with another Faith. And I always hit 'Reply All', and even add the other email addresses in that are not included in the 'Reply All' but are in the body of the email and have been sent the email too.
I don't know the full effect of this, since I've not been doing this for that long, but I do know it has been the most effective method I have used so far.
Thanks for reading and let's Fight The Smears!