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  <body>&lt;p&gt;&amp;ldquo;&lt;strong&gt;Marynotcontrary&lt;/strong&gt; is at Penny&amp;rsquo;s buying socks for her kids. Question: Christmas themed or not?&amp;rdquo; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;ldquo;&lt;strong&gt;Jeffrey SIGMA PHI&lt;/strong&gt; drank too many jag shots last night and is wondering if he&amp;rsquo;s a terrible person.&amp;rdquo;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;These are just the type of stream-of-thought dilemmas that used to make up a vast majority of non-sequitur, slightly neurotic prayers. Now, instead of being broadcast straight to the omniscient mind of the Almighty, they&amp;rsquo;re simply typed into Twitter and sent into what Twitter calls &amp;ldquo;the public timeline.&amp;rdquo;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;ldquo;I think I used to pray because I felt unsure,&amp;rdquo; says housewife Sandy McMartin. &amp;ldquo;Even silly little choices, like what kind of juice to drink in the morning &amp;hellip; you never know, so I would just ask our Lord. Of course, he never really answered, so I just usually chose the one that my heart said was right&amp;mdash;or the one with the most fiber.&amp;rdquo;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Taylor Thompson, a 13-year-old girl, phrases it more casually, &amp;ldquo;Praying used to be kind of like rubbing a lucky marble, or bringing a problem to a magic eight-ball. I was taught to pray as often as I could, but &amp;hellip; to be honest &amp;hellip; I can get a reply almost instantly right on my Twitterberry app.&amp;rdquo;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;God first noticed the lack in pointless prayers about six months ago. Suddenly, he says, &amp;ldquo;I just wasn&amp;rsquo;t hearing as much about Patty from Nestle Creek&amp;rsquo;s hedonistic neighbors, or Susan O&amp;rsquo;Reilly&amp;rsquo;s challenges at planting a perennial garden. By now, I&amp;rsquo;m almost completely out of the loop with how people&amp;rsquo;s diets are going and their reflections on &amp;lsquo;American Idol.&amp;rsquo; I even need to read 17-year-old Kaitlynn Peterson&amp;rsquo;s Twitter just to see what her student council is working on. It&amp;rsquo;s certainly a new era for me. Throughout all eternity, I&amp;rsquo;ve never seen anything like this.&amp;rdquo;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;God himself cannot get a Twitterberry application or download one of the various applications the iPhone offers mobile users. &amp;ldquo;It&amp;rsquo;s a space-time continuum thing,&amp;rdquo; He tried to explain, &amp;ldquo;wireless Internet is a no-go when you&amp;rsquo;re outside of time. We have to use dial-up.&amp;rdquo;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;While the creator of the universe does experience some anxiety at the threat posed to praying by instantly accessible social networking, he has found some benefit. &amp;ldquo;Atheists,&amp;rdquo; he exclaimed, &amp;ldquo;have some juicy thoughts! I can usually only get access to their consciousness stream when they&amp;rsquo;re, you know &amp;lsquo;in a foxhole,&amp;rsquo; but when they&amp;rsquo;re just out on the town, they can be quite witty.&amp;rdquo; Right now, God says he&amp;rsquo;s trying to decipher Neil Gaiman&amp;rsquo;s Twitter, but he just can&amp;rsquo;t follow all the &amp;ldquo;@&amp;rsquo;s,&amp;rdquo; and statements like, &amp;ldquo;Global cupcakes for all = logistic problems.&amp;rdquo; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Outside of broadcasting their thoughts at any given time, Twitter has also become a means of free advertising on the Internet, wherein users can direct followers straight to new web content. Where that trend will lead remains ambiguous, but as God points out, &amp;ldquo;Constant self-promotion became pass&amp;eacute; after the crusades.&amp;rdquo;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;God, who has been in the habit of keeping a low profile for the last two millennia, has no plans of getting his own Twitter, but notes that if he did, his username would be strictly guarded.&amp;nbsp; &amp;ldquo;Just keep in mind,&amp;rdquo; he warned, &amp;ldquo;I&amp;rsquo;m watching you!&amp;rdquo;&lt;/p&gt;</body>
  <byline>Becky Lang</byline>
  <cached-tag-list>twitter, god, religion, satire, consume, becky lang</cached-tag-list>
  <caption>&lt;p&gt;Photo by &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.flickr.com/photos/hypertypos/2967889692/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;hyperscholar&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</caption>
  <category>splice-original</category>
  <comments-count type="integer">3</comments-count>
  <created-at type="datetime">2009-02-27T09:17:06-05:00</created-at>
  <deck>&lt;p&gt;The almighty's schedule has opened up now that people are sharing more menial desires amongst each other.&lt;/p&gt;</deck>
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  <permalink>god-concludes-decrease-in-pointless-prayers-due-to-twitter</permalink>
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  <publish-date type="datetime">2009-02-27T09:17:48-05:00</publish-date>
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  <title>God Concludes Decrease in Pointless Prayers Due to Twitter</title>
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  <updated-at type="datetime">2009-03-04T09:23:15-05:00</updated-at>
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