> I disagree with this. Humor is a tough call, though, because God's sense of humor is not manifestly evident in the Bible -- yet God created us in his image, and it is pretty clear that we have a human *need* for humor. The potency of the ability humor has to lift our spirits and keep us emotionally healthy makes a convincing case that humor was intended to be a part of our emotional make-up. Like anything, I believe it can be corrupted and employed for subversive uses, but as there is precious little in the Bible to guide us in appropriate ways to use humor, it leaves a lot up in the air.

I can agree with that. I would just want to be extremely careful that my joking about sin is not perceived, by anyone at anytime, as the sin itself. This can be a testimony-wrecker. So I would try to never lampoon sinful actions without making it perfectly clear and obvious beforehand, during, and afterwards that I was NOT being serious. The fact that this incident happened in a chat room and not IRL further complicates the matter. I think you fell into that trap. Eric said in his post, "...the whole had been irritating beyond belief to me, and to find out Sam was behind it and had caused all the friction that was going on in the room was angering." Almost everyone in the room thought it was real, and when you (and DAVE, eric! Don't forget that Dave was in on it too!) revealed the truth, I can see how a lot of people might have felt "betrayed" in a sense.

You're really making me think through my position here, Sam. You always do, and that's one of the things I appreciate about you.

Grishny

P.S. I made the parenthetical comment about Dave simply because so far, it seems as though Sam is bearing the brunt of the complaints here, and that just doesn't seem fair. Yes, Sam is the owner of RinkWorks and is therefore held to a somewhat higher standard, but I'm sure that Dave wasn't completely innocent in this either. For that matter, wasn't it Stephen who suggested "pinning the blame" on the innocent?

Ugh. Now I sound like I'm pointing fingers, and I wasn't even there. I better quit while I'm behind.