At the risk of sounding like a Negative Nelly, I have to admit that I've recently developed a new pet peeve.
I didn't know it was coming, and at first it was ignorable, but when I began to realize this small thing was beginning to bother me more and more, I couldn't deny it. And then it became a THING to me, thought it's probably not the kind of thing that bothers other people.
First off, I have to ask; does the following passage look familiar?


As a Christian I want to take a stand in what I believe in. At the risk of a bit of inconvenience, I'm forwarding this to all I think would appreciate it. Please help us prevent such offenses against our Lord. It will take you less than 2 minutes to pass it on. If you are not interested, or donot have the 2 Minutes it will take to do this , please don't complain when God doesn't have time for you, because He is far busier than weare.. Remember, Jesus said 'Deny Me on earth and I'll deny you before my Father'.



Or how about this one?




If you cannot take the time to press the forward button and send this to all your
contacts for the brave soldiers that are fighting for your rights as an American, then you have no patriotism and do not deserve to live in this country that you were born in. Don't be a bad American.


Anyone that gets frequent emails will be familiar with those passages and any others that may be similar.
Am I the only one that is bothered by those?
Don't get me wrong; I love getting emails from my friends, and many of them are inspiring or memorable, or just flat out enjoyable, and well worth sending on or saving. Even the ones with those ridiculous passages underneath them, which are, as a rule, either of a religious nature or of a political/pro-war nature, or something along those lines. And I fully understand that by the time those emails get to my friends and are sent on to me, those insulting passages had already been part of the email for a good long while. It wasn't put there by my friends, but probably by the original maker of the email page, whatever it may be. And I don't want any of my friends reading this to be discouraged from sending me emails containing those words- or similar ones- in the future, because I usually do enjoy the content before getting to the end message, and I look and each and every one of them.
But those little quotes at the end by the original sender more than bother me. It kind of make me mad!
After all, it's really nothing more than someone with a small mind trying to push his/her beliefs on others, via nationwide technology.
I have my own religious and political beliefs, and I have an open mind for the beliefs of others. What others believe is not up to me, doesn't hurt me in any way, and affects me not at all. My main motto for anything from lifestyle choices to religion to politcal beliefs, and anything that falls in between, is "More power to them." I have mine and they have theirs.
So why is it, according to those that write those passages on their email, I am a bad Christian or against God somehow, simply because I don't forward emails that are meant to be fun. Because I'm not. I am a Christian in my heart and I love God very much.
I am not a very political person, but I do have a sense of patriotism that fall within my own beliefs. So why am I a bad American, or a 'traitor to my own country', simply because I don't send the email to others?
I simply have the discretion to send to people the things I know they relate to. Why send a religious email that I may believe in to an atheist friend I've known for 22 years, knowing it would only offend her? My enjoyment of the message would not be her enjoyment. My opinion doesn't change hers.
I'm very sympathetic to our soldiers and what they're doing, but I have an anti-war, ant-violence friend that would disown me if I knowingly sent him something against his personal views as if I were trying to change his mind. My tears for our soldiers would not be his tears.
So what is the point of the makers of those emails to try to browbeat people into their own beliefs by offending the readers' senses of religion, politics or whatever else. Everyone doesn't have to believe the same way, and that doesn't make anyone a bad person.
Putting such passages at the end of otherwise enjoyable, inspiring, educational or knowledgable emails resonates of harassment, fanatacism, and small-mindedness. It's very easy to believe that those that wrote that part of the emails are intolerable of anything but what they believe, and what kind of life is that?
And to be honest, such messages often have an effect opposite of what the original sender intended, at least for me and some of my friends that I know it bothers, too. Because when I read a message from someone I've never met insulting things that might be a personal part of me, simply because they are either a fanatic about their beliefs and want to push it on others, or they just try to use such strong words as a game to see how far their email will go...... well, whatever reason these people have to try browbeating strangers into sending their controversial emails along, it's often just that message at the end that keeps me from doing it. Does that make me rebellious? I don't care.