The service was typical as far as Thanksgiving services go, but what made it newsworthy was the long-standing tradition behind the annual gathering and the guest speaker who had visited the church every year for more than two decades. A wonderful speaker well regarded in the region for his charity work, the guest preacher was dead on in his message until he evoked the name of George Carlin.

As soon as I heard him say the name, I knew I was probably going to have to take with a grain of salt what he was about to say. As the pastor read an essay Mr. Carlin supposedly wrote, it quickly became obvious that the comedian known for his vulgarity and crudeness likely had little to do with something so inspirational and Thanksgiving-sermon worthy. Would the same guy who wrote “seven dirty words” and claimed to have been loaded on cocaine the week before hosting the first episode of Saturday Night Live really say something like, “We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry too quickly, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too seldom, watch TV too much and pray to seldom”?

The truth is Carlin didn’t write it. A child-molesting pastor from Seattle wrote it, according to urban legend debunking site Snopes.com, but the same e-mail-whisper-down-the-lane game that has so many Americans convinced that Presidential hopeful Barack Obama is really a Muslim had this pastor taking a so-called Carlin-penned essay “Paradox of Our Time” at face value.

The too-good-to-be-true irony of the Carlin e-mail made it good fodder for a Thanksgiving sermon—the pastor commenting how Carlin of all people was saying this—but it ultimately illustrates the danger of taking e-mail forwards as gospel. It’s kind of like the “always wear sunscreen” commencement address Kurt Vonnegut never gave or the Internet Al Gore never claimed to have invented.

The “Paradox of Our Time” isn’t the only viral e-mail forward with Carlin’s name on it. In recent years, he has become to e-mail forwards what Chuck Norris is to cheap one-liners. Essays lashing out against tolerance, calling out the New Orleans residents who didn’t evacuate and advocating a crack-pot idea of sending illegal immigrants to fight in Iraq as a way to reduce our dependence on foreign oil have all been erroneously attached to Carlin. To the point where he’s made light of it on his own Web site, emphatically saying that he wasn’t to blame.

His death (note that I didn’t say use the term “passing,” one of many euphemism he liked to ridicule) at age 71 will likely not slow the tide of Internet hoaxes attached to his name, but the simple fact that he became the whisper-down-the-e-mail-chain culprit for so many, in his words, “really lame,” “embarrassing” and “stupid” essays speaks to his success as a comedian, social commentator, philosopher and entertainer. That his death would make me think of church is especially ironic considering that much of his material outside of voice-overs for Cars and Thomas the Tank Engine would be off-limits in most church settings (whether or not it was actually offensive).

My experience a few Thanksgivings ago probably wasn’t the first and likely will not be the last time some erroneous e-mail finds itself being swallowed by a preacher hook, line and sinker. If for some reason, you hear a pastor trying to be hip to current events this week “quoting” Carlin, be sure afterwards to tell the reverend to go to the same computer where he got the e-mail forward and visit www.snopes.com. The pastor might also learn that Hollywood isn’t planning to release a movie about a gay Jesus any time soon, Pepsi is not going to be pruducing a patriotic can without the phrase “under God” and Barack Obama wasn’t sworn in as a senator on the Koran.