{"id":237,"date":"2006-11-06T21:42:29","date_gmt":"2006-11-07T02:42:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/feverishthoughts.com\/oddplanet\/2006\/11\/06\/300-letters-to-god\/"},"modified":"2010-11-22T23:44:21","modified_gmt":"2010-11-23T04:44:21","slug":"300-letters-to-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/feverishthoughts.com\/oddplanet\/2006\/11\/06\/300-letters-to-god\/","title":{"rendered":"300 letters to God"},"content":{"rendered":"<!--CusAds--><p>Instead of selling 300 letters to God that he found floating in the Atlantic ocean, a U.S. man   said on Friday he will donate them to a church. The letters which had been sent to a deceased Baptist clergyman, ended up in a sealed plastic shopping bag near a beach in Atlantic City, N.J.<\/p>\n<div class=\"b1291d92551e5c93995fce7897ccfc30\" data-index=\"2\" style=\"float: right; margin:10px 0 10px 10px;\">\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\r\ngoogle_ad_client = \"pub-3375789278566919\";\r\n\/* OddPlanet_300x250_inpost *\/\r\ngoogle_ad_slot = \"3290981241\";\r\ngoogle_ad_width = 300;\r\ngoogle_ad_height = 250;\r\n\/\/-->\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"\r\nsrc=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\">\r\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n\n<p>Bill Lacovara found the bag while on a fishing trip last week. The letters inside the bag were addressed to Rev. Grady Cooper of Jersey City, New Jersey, who died in 2004. The letters included one from a teen-age girl asking God to forgive her for having an abortion, one from a man who wanted God&#8217;s help winning the lottery, and one from a prisoner who said he was innocent and wanted to be at home with his family.<\/p><!--CusAds-->\n<p>The letters could have been auctioned off on eBay for up to $15,000, and says Lacovara,  he would have given the money to charity. He has withdrawn the letters from the online auction because he said the move offended some religious people.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There were a lot of religious fanatics that were very insulted,&#8221; he told Reuters. &#8220;They said they were disappointed in me, and I didn&#8217;t want to do something that&#8217;s going to create bad vibes.&#8221; He was urged to burn the letters by some or even to throw them back in the ocean or give them to a church.<\/p>\n<!--CusAds--><p>Lacovara said about a dozen clergymen have offered to take the letters, and he is evaluating the requests to make sure the letters don&#8217;t fall into the wrong hands.<\/p>\n<div class=\"b1291d92551e5c93995fce7897ccfc30\" data-index=\"9\" style=\"float: none; margin:10px 0 10px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<br\/>\r\n<div align=\"center\">\r\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\r\ngoogle_ad_client = \"pub-3375789278566919\";\r\n\/* OddPlanet_300x250_underpost *\/\r\ngoogle_ad_slot = \"8431788844\";\r\ngoogle_ad_width = 300;\r\ngoogle_ad_height = 250;\r\n\/\/-->\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"\r\nsrc=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\">\r\n<\/script>\r\n<br\/>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<br\/>\r\n\r\n<?php if ( is_search() || is_single() || is_page() || is_paged() || is_category() || is_archive() ) { ?>\r\n<div align=\"center\">\r\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n  ( function() {\r\n    if (window.CHITIKA === undefined) { window.CHITIKA = { 'units' : [] }; };\r\n    var unit = {\"calltype\":\"async[2]\",\"publisher\":\"dragonden\",\"width\":550,\"height\":250,\"sid\":\"oddplanet\",\"color_site_link\":\"cf4343\",\"color_text\":\"333333\"};\r\n    var placement_id = window.CHITIKA.units.length;\r\n    window.CHITIKA.units.push(unit);\r\n    document.write('<div id=\"chitikaAdBlock-' + placement_id + '\"><\/div>');\r\n}());\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"\/\/cdn.chitika.net\/getads.js\" async><\/script>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<?php } ?>\r\n<br\/>\r\n<br\/>\n<\/div>\n\n<div style=\"font-size: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; clear: both;\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Instead of selling 300 letters to God that he found floating in the Atlantic ocean, a U.S. man said on Friday he will donate them to a church. The letters which had been sent to a deceased Baptist clergyman, ended up in a sealed plastic shopping bag near a beach in Atlantic City, N.J. Bill [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[27,7,25],"tags":[761,762,488,763,447,764,5600,223,193,466,765,353,590,479,102,766,79,115,208,140,5575,767,80,286,81],"class_list":{"0":"post-237","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-entertainment","7":"category-humor","8":"category-recreation","9":"tag-atlantic-ocean","10":"tag-auction","11":"tag-back","12":"tag-charity","13":"tag-city","14":"tag-ebay","15":"tag-family","16":"tag-found","17":"tag-girl","18":"tag-hand","19":"tag-letters-to-god","20":"tag-lottery","21":"tag-make","22":"tag-men","23":"tag-money","24":"tag-new-jersey","25":"tag-odd","26":"tag-online","27":"tag-people","28":"tag-prison","29":"tag-shopping","30":"tag-shopping-bag","31":"tag-strange","32":"tag-teen","33":"tag-weird","34":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/feverishthoughts.com\/oddplanet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/feverishthoughts.com\/oddplanet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/feverishthoughts.com\/oddplanet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feverishthoughts.com\/oddplanet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feverishthoughts.com\/oddplanet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/feverishthoughts.com\/oddplanet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/feverishthoughts.com\/oddplanet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feverishthoughts.com\/oddplanet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feverishthoughts.com\/oddplanet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}