Boards a poor forum
The Misanthrope by ETHAN CHATAGNIER
One only has to walk through the free speech area these days to find
illegible, indecipherable messages from our peers on the nature of God.
The message boards have once again gone up, and once again the responses
have been comically varied.
My favorite response on the board asking, “What is sin?” was
“the inverse of cosin.” While arcsin is actually what a calculator
would call the inverse of sin, any stab at mathematical humor wins my
respect.
More lowbrow jokes answered “fat girls in thongs” and both
“masturbating” and “not masturbating.”
Political statements also made their way onto the board, making claims
that being a Democrat is a sin and so is supporting George W. Bush.
If you skim past the overwhelming majority of joke answers and off-topic
responses (like the bass player using the board as ad space), you can
find a few serious responses that are probably more embarrassing.
I cringe reading “Jesus died 4 your sins” and “Jesus
4gives.” Both believers and non-believers should shy away from relegating
Jesus to the sickening world of Internet shorthand.
It’s said that bad poetry is the most sincere, and in the same way,
the most sincere comments on these boards are often the most simple or
inarticulate. The big letters which declare that there is no God or that
sin is something Christians use to make others feel guilt draw direct
responses stating that others just don’t understand, or they will
be judged.
The interesting quality about these boards, which pop up periodically,
is the condition of anonymity. No one can call you and chew you out for
what you wrote.
You won’t be held accountable for what you write, and so we see
the boards, year after year degenerate, into a few sincere statements
and a chorus of tasteless jokes. Maybe the time is right to give up on
a forum that does nothing to stimulate worthwhile discussion. Maybe this
year, someone will take note of that.
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