Xian-Mingle.com - interesting marketing!

[onager]

Yesterday I DVR'd a bunch of shows to watch later, from a TV marathon that was showing all day.

I noticed that one of the biggest advertisers on the marathon is Christian-Mingle.com. With its tagline “Find God’s match for you!”

CM kept running the same ad with the same ANNOYING fiftyish white-bread couple over and over. They were rubbing noses. Gak!

It was so cute, it made me want to throw another baby on the grill for my Virtual Atheist July Fourth Barbecue.

I mean, I might rub noses in private myself with my S.O., but I sure wouldn't let it go out on TV for an audience of millions to laugh at.

The interesting part - the TV marathon was on the Investigation Discovery channel.

And it was a marathon of the show "Who The Bleep Did I Marry?"

This is one of my many guilty pleasures on the ID Channel. The show is about men and women who find out their spouses are murderers, con artists, drug dealers, bank robbers, serial killers, etc. etc.

e.g., there was the good born-again Xian wife who married a devout Catholic cop. She got him to convert to her particular cult. Later she traded Jesus for dope...well, another kind of dope, anyway. And tried to hire a hit man to kill her hubby.

So before long, I eagerly look forward to an episode which starts out with a man or woman saying: It all started when I answered an ad on Christian-Mingle.com, to find God's match for me...

http://investigation.discovery.com/tv/who-the-bleep/

[Ron Obvious]

1. Abraham & Isaac

Anybody who believes that willingness to sacrifice your child on the command of a supernatural being is morally exemplary behaviour is someone I would be scared to death of dating or even be friendly with.

I don't know what percentage of Christians fall into that category, frankly, but I'll give them a wide berth until I know otherwise.

[trotsky]

2. A brave soul posed that question in the Religion group.

Basically, would you kill your own child if you were convinced god was telling you to?

Oh the hemming and hawing... but no outright denials. That was the most revealing part.

[Curmudgeoness]

3. Their marketing dept must be very busy.

I got an ad for them when I checked my email. Don't you have to ask yourself, where do these come from???? I understand when I google refrigerators, all of a sudden I get a bunch of frig ads, but this???? Me???? I am almost tempted to see if they would accept me, since the ad said something about guarantees or vetting or some such thing.

[trotsky]

5. My guess is that they're just targeting ANY single people, and then make the (safe) assumption...

that if you're in this country, you are likely a Christian. Then they weed out the undesirables if any try applying.

[OswegoAtheist]

4. I <3 C-M

I had a profile on there where I specifically stated that I practiced all 600+ Old Testament laws, and that women who were menstruating shouldn't contact me. Only on C-M could I get away with that and receive actual replies (which I would always turn down by pointing out the sins they were committing).

Oswego "Maybe I should reactivate that profile..." Atheist

[trotsky]

6. You are awesome.

That is fucking hilarious.

[FiveGoodMen]

7. Let me echo Trotsky's praise!

Awsome is right!

[EvolveOrConvolve]

12. You are my new hero!

I'm almost 40 and I swear I giggled when I read your post.

[OriginalGeek]

15. I'm getting close to 50 and I

laughed right the fuck out loud.


I would subscribe to a website that routinely published those back and forth emails.

[progressoid]

17. I think you should get a special internets prize for that!

[truebrit71]

8. Here's my problem...why do they need a website to find the perfect partner that 'god' has planned...

...for them...shouldn't they automatically be able to find each other, you know, if it was part of some plan already?

[FiveGoodMen]

9. They'll just say the website WAS god's plan

Seriously...

During his appearances at church conventions in the 1970s, Popoff routinely and accurately stated the home addresses and specific illnesses of his audience members, a feat many believed was due to divine revelation and "God given ability".[6] In 1986 when members of CSICOP reported that Popoff was using a radio to receive messages, Popoff denied it and said the messages came from God.[7] At the time of his popularity, skeptic groups across the United States printed and handed out pamphlets explaining how Popoff's feats could be done.[2] Popoff would tell his audience that the pamphlets were "tools of the devil".[2]

Popoff's earlier claims were debunked in 1986 when noted skeptic James Randi and his assistant Steve Shaw researched Popoff by attending revival meetings across the country for months. Randi asked investigator and crime scene analyst Alexander Jason [1] for technical assistance and he was able to use a high-tech (at the time) computerized scanner during a Popoff appearance in San Francisco. Jason identified and intercepted the radio transmissions[8] that were being sent by Peter's wife Elizabeth Popoff who was backstage reading information which she and her aides (Reeford Lee Sherrell and Pamela Sherrell) had gathered from earlier conversations with members of the audience. Popoff would listen to these promptings with an in-ear receiver and repeat what he heard to the crowd.[9]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Popoff#Exposed_as_a_fraud_by_James_Randi

But he claimed that god WANTED him to work that way and ...

In 1998 The Washington Post reported that Popoff was making a recovery, and that "Popoff is seeking to jump-start his ministry by repackaging himself for an African American audience, buying time on the Black Entertainment Television network".[15]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Popoff#Resurgence


None so blind as those who see what they want to see.

[Curmudgeoness]

10. What would be more fun than intercepting the transmissions

would be to jam the transmissions so that all he got was static in his ear. At every single "show".

Oops, God must be on vacation.

[FiveGoodMen]

11. Never thought of that!

Good idea.

[awoke_in_2003]

13. one of their tag lines...

on TV goes something like "sometimes we wait for god to make the next move, when god is saying it's time to act". You think god would stop being so f'ing vague

[JNelson6563]

14. I suspect their god has a wicked sense of humor.

kinda like Rmoney.

[Constance Craving]

16. God's match

So this is what I thought of the second time I saw one of those commercials . . .

Matches on those sites are created by mathematical algorithms right? So in essence, aren't they saying, since the matches are put together with math, that MATH is god?

Just the things I think!

[AlbertCat]

18. that MATH is god?

S =k log w