(in the intertubes?)
by charles lin sep. November 11, 2007
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I had an existential crisis the other day, so I decided to seek help. naturally, he knew where to turn.
to: god@gmail.com
subject: hello
message:
my god,
who, what, why, when and where are you?
also, can laura have a pony?
—charles
I immediately received a delivery error message. Realizing I wasn’t being broad enough with my queries, I sent emails to jesus@gmail.com, zeus@gmail.com, odin @ gmail.com, ahuramazda@gmail.com and xipe.totec@gmail.com (the Aztec skinning god). only ahuramazda and xipe received my messages. jesus must have been out of the office or something, or maybe st. peter runs his spam filter.
My inability to connect with the higher powers of my choice made me very discouraged. no offense xipe but i really wanted to have a heart to heart talk with the big man upstairs. then it occurred to me. the reason god@gmail.com didn’t exist was because google didn’t want god@gmail.com to exist. if you look at their account creation page, they stipulate: “sorry, your username must be between 6 and 30 characters”. now this excludes all western gods; zeus, god, jesus, allah and odin are out of luck. but eastern gods like vishnu and buddha could have gmail accounts if they wanted.
why would google discriminate against western religion? Was Google simply trying to wield its power? having fulfilled the three requirements of a lesser deity (omniscience, omnipotence, whimsical humor), did google wish for more?
I decided to call them to task and posted a cruel message on the google message board.
re: why does google hate western religion?!?!?!?!?
a war of holy flames later, I got my answer.
from google support: “We have found that short usernames on popular domains receive significantly more spam as they are easy to generate automatically. Gmail’s requirement that all usernames be at least six characters has as goal to keep spam out of your inbox.”
there it was. it’s not that google hates god; it’s just that google is looking for god. They don’t want God’s inbox filled with prescription drug offers or free Harvard diplomas. wow, i calmed down.
This meant, of course, that god had to come up with another identifier for his gmail account. And who am I to try to figure out god’s nickname and his favorite number combination? I wasn’t about to send random emails to alphaandomega@gmail.com or manupstairs@gmail.com. for all i know they probably belong to overweight hackers and i don’t think laura will like it when they find out she wants a pony. the last thing she wanted was a reply email that said:
re: hello
no pony for you!! pwned!
—0n3 7ru3 g0d
no one wants to be fooled by a pwny.
but I still felt empty inside as my emails had not been answered. I thought about my training and youth. if god can hear us muttering to ourselves at night, surely he can read emails. I just had to show a little faith, maybe step foot in there and take a leap. a leap of faith… and then it hit me. my missives should not be thrown to the wind at random. I knew exactly where to send my emails! Thanks to a certain tenured history teacher, I know for a fact that in English, Yehovah begins with J.
I wrote a new email to jehovah@gmail.com and blindfolded theholyspirit@gmail.com. I just hope they have wifi in heaven.
If you too are seeking to reach a higher power, email chazlin@mit.edu.