There’s this guy I ran into recently on a christian blog who commented in reply to a comment of mine. In response to a post about an atheist refusing to accept a discussion with scripture involved, I essentially said It always baffles me when people demand an explanation for our beliefs and then scoff at our using the Bible to do it, to which his reply was a little too congratulatory and praising for my comfort.

It’s hard to explain, but something about the way he worded his compliments creeped me out a bit, and it’s odd to see comments like his. Most people who agree will just say, hey me too, but this guy was a little weird, so I went to check him out, see who he was.

Turns out, he’s what you’d probably call a “bible-thumper”, and he runs 50+ blogspot blogs all with loads and loads of ads and other marketing material for various ministries the guy believes in or is associated with, including a long-time favorite of mine, Way of the Master, which I hope is not endorsing his behavior.

So I commented back thanking him for his enthusiasm for my comment, but that I disagreed with his having all of these splogs, or as I call them in his case, godplogs. In a complete about face, he let into me about how my personal blog is self-serving and his are all for other people (so there), as though that’s the only requirement for decent blogging behavior. He even tried to say it’s not against Blogger’s terms which is just insane logic. Just because something is OK with Blogger doesn’t make it OK with anyone else, much less God.

What he’s doing is tricking the system. He’s deliberately setting out to improve search engine ranking, with little other apparent purpose. On the one hand, he’s doing good for these ministries, but is he doing good for God? I don’t think so. I think he’s being manipulative and self-serving in his own way. You might say he worships these ministries. You might even say he worships the cause of Christ more than Christ himself.

What was really odd was that in his first reply he quoted scripture to tell me how blessed with humility I was and in the second one he quoted a different piece of scripture to back up a comment with the opposite sentiment. This right away told me he wasn’t at all credible. Then, I read some of the other comments to and about him, and apparently he has a reputation for this strange behavior.

The Godsplogger comments dozens of times every day to dozens of posts on this single blog. God knows how many other blogs he frequents, apparently under assumed names, some have said. What gets me is time. I know how much effort it takes to split my own computer time with family, God, personal time, and I have a difficult time stretching it all. It’s amazing to me that someone like him can have so much free time that this is the best way he can see to spend it.

Of course, here I am blogging about it. :) I’m just ranting really, there’s not a real point to this except to vent because I hate spam so much… in any form… and somehow it’s so much worse when they put God’s name on it.

And maybe that’s what was creepy about his initial reply.

Here was this guy who didn’t know me and he was going on and on about how “christian” I was. It was like he was endorsing me based on one simple comment and I imagine I felt the way Jesus must, saying, “please, don’t associate my name with yours.” And then I wonder how much Jesus would want me speaking for him either.

Even though I know the guy is just bizarre and not doing good for God, despite the good that may be in his heart, I’ve been beating myself up all night for my comment, re-reading it, wondering if I could have been nicer or more “christian”. I’ve come to a conclusion: some people are born with a conscience, spammers were born without, and me… well, I was born with a thousand-pound gorilla jumping up and down on my back when I make a mistake.

Side note about Twitter spam

So now we’re seeing a ton of Twitter sploggers coming out. You know them. They follow 1000+ people (in one case I saw it as high as 22,700+), and they’re all pretty much junk-filled twitter posts with links to their main website and very few if any @replies or other social interaction.

Chris Pallé is talking about Twitter spammers today too. I call them spitters, and when they spam, they spit on us. :)