I wish we could make these up, gang. I really really do. But we get these emails. How many are Poes and how many are the real crazy? All I can tell you from experience (as I'm willing to bet we at AETV are on the receiving end of Poe-age more than most) is that when people Poe us, they're usually very nudge-wink obvious about it (like, they really overdo the misspellings, cap locks, and 1's in place of !'s), and they pretty much always wrap up with "Haha! Just kidding, I'm an atheist too! Your show rocks! Keep up the good work!", as if we'd actually just been masterfully punked.
So, when we get something like this, it's usually the real deal.
Death doesn’t exist. The plan after death is like this we live. When people die they see their clothes, their utensils, objects and common residences, buildings, houses, flats. There is no more masons, doctors, manufacturing cooks handling with matter, because this plan is mental.
(Indeed it is. —MW) You only need mind power and the work is done. Food, clothes, cars, modern objects is all the same. This plan is like here, no bureaucracy e everyboby deals with his reality, creates it, sceneries, nature by his own. We, the living beings, the plants, everything remains. Everybody can create his reality, for example: A person has a thought car. We think even buildings and make them exist. In order to avoid destruction in case of strikes is the same situation. They multiplied to a number of 849 billion people, all is possible there. I believe changes will begin in 2012 and will end in 2014. The Earth will be spiritual, a state of mind. In this plan, there are no myths, no mythology, only human beings and their will expanding to other planets. You have sex with a person in the shape you want.
I just knew he was leading up to a big finish there.
Face this fact: there are deeply, epically irrational humans in the world. And they write to us! So, you know, we really need some hugs about now. In whatever shape you want.
Keep this guy's contact information, so we can have a follow up discussion in 2015.
ReplyDeleteMy mind power runs at about 20 watts at 30hz.
If it wasn't for the fairly accurate typing, I would think this is the sort of thing an incredibly drunk person would be rambling on about.
I think it's a fake. I make stuff up like this all the time... in fact i have a blog dedicated to whatever tongue-in-cheek conspiracy theories and nonsensical ideas about reality I come up with (or combine what I've actually heard from some nuts)
ReplyDeleteIt's great fun and I've actually confused some people enough that they've asked me if it's real... out of good conscious I tell them it is for entertainment and humor. But if I were like a television evangelist there could very well be some money in it.
Nah, drunk people are more articulate: "I LOVE YOU GUYS. WHAT DO YOU MEAN I'M TALKING TOO LOUD?! YOU GUYS... I MEAN... YOU *GUYS*."
ReplyDeleteThey also talk in all-caps. Just so you know.
wow.
ReplyDeleteA friend of mine told me about a "spiritual awakening" of the world that would begin in 2012, but this guy's story seems even more crazy.
So there's a afterlife that seems to be just like our world, just without all the bad stuff. And between 2012 and 2014, earth and this afterlife-world will somehow fuse together, or earth will become like the afterlife, or... whatever. This plan does indeed sound mental.
(He did mean to say "plane", right?)
Basically he describes how he would like reality/the afterlife to be and then throws delusion at this idea until he believes that his ideas are fact.
*gives Martin a big icosahedron-shaped hug*
Sounds like he's in pretty bad shape
ReplyDeleteOf course, you realize now that you've said this the serious Poe-ers are going to get craftier.
ReplyDeleteI'm invoking Poe's Law here, if only to be able to sleep tonight....
ReplyDeleteBtw, if this IS legit, I think it was likely written by Charlie Manson.
*hugs for martin*
ReplyDeleteMythnam: I doubt it. Keeping Poe-age going takes more effort than most people are willing to put in. If you see consistency, then it's the real crazy, unless you're someone who's decided to make a career of it like Landover Baptist.
ReplyDeleteThe thing about Poe's Law that I find goddamned annoying is that it seems to have given lots of otherwise smart people the immensely idiotic idea that there are not, in fact, any actual crazy people alive anywhere in the world at all, or if there are, they are incapable of using computers. And so if you see someone being totally bananapants crazy on the internet, it's always going to be some clever jokester just having shits and giggles.
All Poe's Law actually says is that it's impossible to parody religious fundamentalism in such a way that it's any crazier than what actual fundamentalists often believe. People who make the "oh this has gotta be a Poe" response to every example of online lunacy they encounter haven't thought through what this implies. It isn't that the crazier someone's rant is, the more likely it is to be fake; in fact it implies the opposite.
I don't think it's a poe, he doesn't sound much crazier than the friend I mentioned.
ReplyDelete[Said friend had a nervous breakdown last week and is in a psychiatric clinic right now. Let's hope he get's better fast. :( ]
Wow... just.. wow.
ReplyDeleteSomeones been watching Inception...
ReplyDeleteI love these things best when they have a date. That when when they don't happen we can all laugh.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how we are supposed to "see" clothing, utensils, etc. without eyes (and I wonder how the author imagines s/he knows this.)
ReplyDeleteI stumbled into new agey type beliefs as I was leaving religions. I hope I never sounded that daft.
In any case, one rhombus shaped hug for Martin and a sprinkling of ovoid kisses for the rest of the gang.
"You have sex with a person in the shape you want."
ReplyDeleteDo you think this person had a weird, traumatic experience with the Chuck Jones cartoon 'The Dot and the Line'?
I thought the same thing 'Bernard' did, sounds like Inception with a little 2012 mixed in!
ReplyDeleteMartin said: "All Poe's Law actually says is that it's impossible to parody religious fundamentalism in such a way that it's any crazier than what actual fundamentalists often believe."
ReplyDeleteThe idea being that a Poe and some instance of the real thing are equally insane, and therefore, it's very hard to discern one from the other. I do not see anywhere in this definition that the crazier the text, the more likely it is that it's a Poe; nor do I see this a logical implication of the concept.
Following that, I don't see how it's erroneous to assume one over the other when, as far as my non mathematical mind can tell, it's impossible to establish odds of a particular piece of writing being one or the other.
That all being said, I'm acutely aware, as is (I'd wager) everyone else who engages in this sort of discussion, that there are, in fact, people out there who ARE this crazy, or this delusional.
Mentally unstable (or possibly sane but miseducated) people incorporate current news and developments into their delusion framework. So, it's not so far-fetched that this person could have indeed "watched Inception", as another comment above states. I've witnessed one person who just adopts fictional accounts from entertainment movies based on urban legends. To these people, such films become indistuingishable from documentary.
ReplyDeleteI suspect it's a similar mindset at work in the reverse: delusional people produce films that depict purely fictional events and entities, but not for a moment doubt that what they're making is a documentary film, since they assume that the original fiction their film is based on is a factual report.
This would lead to a film industry where completely batshit crazy people work productively hand in hand with perfectly sane co-workers, on all levels. And as far as I can see, that's exactly what we have.
Of course that same mindset would facilitate mocking any actual documentation or even scientific papers as fictional - as "fairytales for grownups", as our all-favorite street evangelist is comfortable saying.
They simply never understood how to work out the difference.
wv: mentess
Is there a similar law to Poe's law for 'sophisticated theologians'?
ReplyDeleteA guy once told me (apparently in all seriousness)that arguing that god doesn't exist is ridiculous because accepting the non-existence of god is the start of theology. You then have to accept that god neither exists nor doesn't exist but rather is existence itself.
How could distinguish that from parody?
richarddawkins.net/discussions/543672-inhertitance-of-acquired-behaviour-adaptions-and-brain-gene-expression-in-chickens
ReplyDeleteatheists, we're gonna cut off your heads...
THE HIGH PRICE OF REVOLUTION
youtube.com/user/xviolatex?feature=mhum
I was leaning more towards this guy being a What the Bleep... fan than an Inception fan, but you could be right.
ReplyDeleteI confess that sometimes I ask 'is this a Poe?' as a more subtle way of saying:
ReplyDelete"Are you truly this utterly bat shit crazy?"
I don't tend to say it when the author isn't around however, because, as Martin said, unless it's blatant, it tends to be real. :(
Would a banana-shaped hug be appropriate?
ReplyDeleteif I were like a television evangelist there could very well be some money in it.
I've thought about this myself. I think I could be a great preacher if only I could ditch this annoying conscience of mine. It's all a matter of just turning your critical faculties off and your mouth on.
Sometimes it's amazing what comes out of your mouth when you don't bother thinking about whether what you're saying is actually true.
I detect a hint of ESL in this one.
ReplyDeleteDoes this mean Pedobear is real in "heaven" (afterlife)? And considered good?
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like someone who took THE SECRET and ran with it, straight off a pier and into a sea of new age gobbledygook. So to speak. Unless it's a joke, in which case...kudos.
ReplyDelete"Is there a similar law to Poe's law for 'sophisticated theologians'?
ReplyDeleteA guy once told me (apparently in all seriousness)that arguing that god doesn't exist is ridiculous because accepting the non-existence of god is the start of theology. You then have to accept that god neither exists nor doesn't exist but rather is existence itself."
Lmao. That's awesome.
If I can make love to someone in any shape I choose, I choose tripping my balls off on shrooms
ReplyDeleteI'm saddened by the lack of critical thinking shown in these e-mails you post to the blog. Many people nowadays are denying traditional religion, but that doesn't mean they are automatically more rational than believers. Many of them are simply being taken into this new-agey crap instead. It's no better than religion in terms of applying rational thought to their beliefs.
ReplyDeleteHis "thought car" just drove off the overpass on I-35.
ReplyDeleteI've done some Poe-age myself in the past, but my position is always to assume that the comments are real unless there are the telltale signs of satire, or the person comes out and flat-out says it was a joke (and sometimes, not even then; see "Christian side-hug" and "Ray Comfort's banana").
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to disbelieving that people can be this nuts, my mind always goes back to Ray Comfort. Despite everything that makes me want to believe that he's an elaborate Andy Kaufman-style hoax, he appears to be genuinely both that dumb and that dishonest. And there are people who not only believe him, but see his evangelism style as something to emulate.
And that's why I never think it's a Poe until there's some good reason beyond "boy, this is nuts."
[hug]
ReplyDeleteI think you should have just deleted the email and spared everyone this crap. JMO.
ReplyDelete