Dear God. Prayers for the modern world.

April 13, 2008 9:25 PM

Dear God is a global project for people around the world to share their innermost hopes - and fears - through prayer. Some photos NSFW.
posted by ColdChef (39 comments total)

I hope all those people post god's responses. I'd like to know the answers to some of those questions.
posted by Huck500 at 9:35 PM on April 13, 2008 [3 favorites]

are you there, god?
it's me, margaret.
posted by CitizenD at 9:36 PM on April 13, 2008 [1 favorite]

I hope you got the letter and..
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 9:45 PM on April 13, 2008 [3 favorites]

More like "Prayers for the modern self."

If there is a God and he's listening, I'm not so certain we deserve him.
posted by dhammond at 9:50 PM on April 13, 2008

Dear God,

I keep getting all my letters to you returned and marked "Addressee Unknown". I'm afraid my postman is an agnostic.
posted by Inspector.Gadget at 9:52 PM on April 13, 2008 [1 favorite]

This is a lot like those anonymous confession sites, except with some good and bad photography thrown in. And like the confession sites, the most interesting ones are the obviously fake ones which project the doubts and fears we think certain people should be feeling about their horrible, horrible lives.
posted by bluejayk at 9:58 PM on April 13, 2008

The photos are great. I wonder who takes them/where they get them.
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 10:00 PM on April 13, 2008

Dear God,
Please make me less cynical because I think this site is just The Cool Hunter looking for advertising revenue.
posted by tellurian at 10:00 PM on April 13, 2008 [3 favorites]

Dear God,

I wish Post Secret had a more design consistency and a tongue-in-cheek theological tone.

Thanks,
Jeffrey
posted by wigu at 10:03 PM on April 13, 2008

Dear God,

Thank you for the previous comment which made me feel I was less cynical than I had previously thought - what with all the photos and the slickness and stuff.

Also, while I'm here: penguins. What's that all about?

Regards,
Todd Lokken
posted by pompomtom at 10:05 PM on April 13, 2008

Dear Todd Lokken,
Penguins are an enigma wrapped in a conspiracy enshrouded with phyllo dough.

Later on,
God
posted by CitizenD at 10:09 PM on April 13, 2008

Dear Internet,
Stock photography must always be second to actual content.

(Not a commandment, just a recommendation)

signed,
Me
posted by humannaire at 10:21 PM on April 13, 2008 [1 favorite]

Great. Another website to compete with Post Secret's self-indulgent hand-wringing.
posted by Avenger at 10:37 PM on April 13, 2008 [1 favorite]

Dear God,

Actually, this time I don't have any hand-wringing to bug you about. But I would like to give thanks for MetaFilter. No photos though. Just a blue page.

Yours truly,

Corky Evans
posted by KokuRyu at 10:43 PM on April 13, 2008

Dear God,

Can't you do something about the comments on YouTube?



Also, droughts & poverty.

hugs,
me
posted by maryh at 10:52 PM on April 13, 2008 [2 favorites]

Dear God
posted by homunculus at 11:02 PM on April 13, 2008

Dear God,

I've been a good boy this year, so I want a G.I. Joe with the kung-fu grip, Hot Wheels and a Lego set.

P.S. - Mom says I have to write this letter over again because I asked the wrong person.
posted by bwg at 11:03 PM on April 13, 2008 [1 favorite]

Dear God,

I never believed anything I read in Dear God forums, until just last week, I was studying late at the campus library, and who should I see? It was Sheila, a girl I knew from our sister Sorority. I had seen her at several of the fraternity socials, and had even screwed up the courage to speak to her once, offering her a plastic cup filled with brew from the keg. Tonight she was looking especially hot ...
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:06 PM on April 13, 2008 [6 favorites]

Overwrought; these letters must be god's midday soaps.
posted by spaltavian at 11:17 PM on April 13, 2008

Dear God,

Where are all those MeFi ponies?

Hugs and hand-pounds,
Leon-arto
posted by Leon-arto at 11:44 PM on April 13, 2008 [1 favorite]

Whenever I want to share my innermost hopes - and fears - I write them on a tiny fortune cookie sized slip of paper, which I then roll up & stuff inside a ragged aging My Little Pony plushie from 1988 (it's Sweetberry, if you must know). Then I have long serious staring contest with the My Little Pony, and if blink first, then the Pony wins, and my prayers go unanswered.

This is why George W Bush got re-elected, and also why America is not called The United States of JONSON IS AWESOME.
posted by jonson at 11:51 PM on April 13, 2008 [2 favorites]

Dear God,

Please? Thanks.

Love,

Katy

P.S. - About that other thing? My bad.
posted by katillathehun at 11:53 PM on April 13, 2008

I never believed anything I read in Dear God forums, until just last week,

Astro Zombie for the win. Thanks man. You made me spit my coffee out my nose!
posted by three blind mice at 1:01 AM on April 14, 2008

Thankfully, the comments are nothing like YouTube's.
posted by hadjiboy at 1:07 AM on April 14, 2008

What the hell is this? I was expecting weird, "Christian God" + NSFW pretty much always delivers, but it still managed to turn my crank almost all the way around.

First the 'humor' bit. I'm a twit, granted, but I don't get it. Is this a real letter, or a made up one? Someone joshing the site or humor from the site?

Then this sad and (presumably) earnest letter about how a guy's girlfriend has just had an abortion. And then topped with a picture of a guy with his head in his hands... WTF is this? Shitty Design Projects 101? I don't know if I'm supposed to look at the stock photos (many obnoxiously water-marked all to hell) or read the letters which are as often in jarring conjunction as dis-junction with the texts.

My favorite: large picture of a woman's bum ( Ta DA! ) and then some letter from a guy who's sex-life is (well it's irrelevant) - but is it a joke, the juxtoposition? It's a really mean, bitter and almost funny joke, except I'm pretty sure it's not a joke as it doesn't have a 'humor' tag.

God this pisses me off. The NSFW didn't even... just, God damn it.
posted by From Bklyn at 2:18 AM on April 14, 2008

So do I bury the St. Joseph statue or not?
posted by maxwelton at 2:36 AM on April 14, 2008 [1 favorite]

Dear God

I just imported an iPhone into Australia, and now I hear that it's going to get launched here at the end of June. Please make the Australian model cost over a grand, have lousy battery life, pissweak 3G reception and have some fatal bug that bricks the lot of them and can't be fixed.

Thank you
Obiwanwasabi
posted by obiwanwasabi at 4:33 AM on April 14, 2008

This quite funny.
posted by Pia at 4:37 AM on April 14, 2008

God can't talk to us because he's travelling in the opposite temporal direction. He's a being from the end of time trying to assure his eventual existence. He can't talk to us because information is directional, thanks to time's arrow and entropy. So the only messages he can leave us are from our past, which is his future. In our future, they'll make sense, but only if he remembers his past well enough for the messages to be accurate.
posted by Eideteker at 5:18 AM on April 14, 2008

Dear God,

You have a lot of 'splaining to do.

Orangie.
posted by orange swan at 6:12 AM on April 14, 2008

Dear God,

Thank you for ColdChef.
posted by Sailormom at 6:19 AM on April 14, 2008

Dear God,

I am a close associate of Ex-head of State of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Late General Sanni Abacha. I want to know if you can assist me by providing your foreign account for a quick transfer of a total sum of $95.5m U.S. Dollars from Africa to your account. You were recommended to me by one of your devout followers, Retired Col. Usman Mohammed. But I did not disclose my intentions to him. I promise to offer you 25% of the total sum if you can assist me as requested.

Further details relating to this will communicate to you immediately I hear from you. Remember also to include your private telephone and fax numbers for easy and confidential communication.

Regards,

-malocchio
posted by malocchio at 6:42 AM on April 14, 2008 [4 favorites]

Assuming the emails are real (and the photos are consistent enough to make me think the site designers and not the submitters provide them -- yet, the photos often undermine the content, so it's confusing) - the best part is that most of the ones I read say "Hey God - I'm mostly unhappy about how other people [something]"

If I was god, I'd be all like "Hey hey hey... tell them, not me. I just made them. I didn't make them assholes."
posted by illovich at 7:21 AM on April 14, 2008

Dear God,

Why am I talking to you? You already know everything.

Nevermind.

Love,
'Sludge
posted by LordSludge at 7:56 AM on April 14, 2008

Dear God,


More lazy soft sunday afternoon light filtering through the bedroom curtains on to girls' shapely asses please.

I approve.
posted by stenseng at 8:43 AM on April 14, 2008

Dear God -

Do you have the number of Tina in Chicago, and is she still a sex addict? And is that actually her picture?

Thanks

yer pal,

KT
posted by Keith Talent at 8:59 AM on April 14, 2008

Dear God,

E|\|L4rg3 Y0ur P3|\|l5 ln 6 D4Y5 0r M0|\|3Y |3aC|<

GU4R4|\|T33d!
posted by Sys Rq at 2:37 PM on April 14, 2008

Jesus, that was depressing!
posted by The Light Fantastic at 3:44 PM on April 14, 2008

Yeah, if those messages have any semblance to the way real people feel then, man are we in trouble.
posted by dg at 5:03 AM on April 15, 2008