I asked my friend the other day whether there was eating in Heaven (never mind that we are both atheists). He wondered why I was asking and I told him cryptically, “because I want cake.”
He countered, “There doesn’t have to be Heaven to get cake.”
“Yeah, but I want it right now, instantly, perfect, without effort, without the exchange of money.”
I craved moist vanilla cake, with the purest, whitest frosting, a wedge the size of a small child’s head, blinked there in hand on a plate with a big fork. We continued on in this vein, considering that there was no need to eat in Heaven, no hunger, no cravings to make you want to eat. There ensued the Epicurean considerations of eating for pleasure. The whole conjecture became a frivolous mental exercise to get us through another work day. What of sex? Smoking? Does not the craving and subsequent fulfillment a process which intensifies the pleasure and surely therefore that is certainly the essence of Heaven?
Go ahead, create your own Heaven. I see no harm. Religious persons have been doing it since shortly after the dawn of organized religion. Afraid of our own mortality, human minds invent these selfish fantasies to put off the idea of dying.
It’s fun to damn those you oppose to hell; penguin haters (who can hate a penguin?), Dallas Cowboy fans, people who love the movie Top Gun, and so on. Reward those you like- Grandma, your third grade teacher, the cover model from Sports Illustrated that haunted you as a boy- with eternal life in the clouds. Are they young and beautiful again? I thought so. They await your future arrival with open, loving arms.
Have dinner parties with Douglas Adams, Josephine Baker, Seneca, H.L. Mencken, Marie Curie and Oscar Wilde. Create a super star Rock Band; Jimi Hendrix on lead guitar, John Lennon on vocals and rhythm guitar, Jim Morrison singing, John Bonham on drums, Mozart on keyboards and Bootsy Collins on bass (wait a minute that last one’s not dead). Of course, God’s there, whether Allah, Jehovah, Yahweh, Odin or Zeus, smiling down on you, happy with how well you spent your life, and gracious enough not mention the time your mom caught you, with the Sears catalog open to the bra section and spread across your lap behind a door that was supposed to be locked. Your old pet goldfish is there, swimming happily despite the last time you saw her she was spiraling down a flushed toilet.
It’s cathartic to exact revenge and grant favor in a world of your own justice because the Creator of the Universe thinks exactly like you and you alone. Heaven, a place of infinite peace and contentment, is comforting thought, where we console ourselves that the people we loved who died go and are waiting for us. And Hell is endless suffering and pain for those who oppose us. “He’ll get his in the end!” and “Go to Hell!” take on rounder, more meaningful connotation in light of our personal prejudice. Whether agonizing over that nasty co-worker or getting over the death of friend, it makes you feel better in the moment and is harmless, unless you take it seriously.
He countered, “There doesn’t have to be Heaven to get cake.”
“Yeah, but I want it right now, instantly, perfect, without effort, without the exchange of money.”
I craved moist vanilla cake, with the purest, whitest frosting, a wedge the size of a small child’s head, blinked there in hand on a plate with a big fork. We continued on in this vein, considering that there was no need to eat in Heaven, no hunger, no cravings to make you want to eat. There ensued the Epicurean considerations of eating for pleasure. The whole conjecture became a frivolous mental exercise to get us through another work day. What of sex? Smoking? Does not the craving and subsequent fulfillment a process which intensifies the pleasure and surely therefore that is certainly the essence of Heaven?
Go ahead, create your own Heaven. I see no harm. Religious persons have been doing it since shortly after the dawn of organized religion. Afraid of our own mortality, human minds invent these selfish fantasies to put off the idea of dying.
It’s fun to damn those you oppose to hell; penguin haters (who can hate a penguin?), Dallas Cowboy fans, people who love the movie Top Gun, and so on. Reward those you like- Grandma, your third grade teacher, the cover model from Sports Illustrated that haunted you as a boy- with eternal life in the clouds. Are they young and beautiful again? I thought so. They await your future arrival with open, loving arms.
Have dinner parties with Douglas Adams, Josephine Baker, Seneca, H.L. Mencken, Marie Curie and Oscar Wilde. Create a super star Rock Band; Jimi Hendrix on lead guitar, John Lennon on vocals and rhythm guitar, Jim Morrison singing, John Bonham on drums, Mozart on keyboards and Bootsy Collins on bass (wait a minute that last one’s not dead). Of course, God’s there, whether Allah, Jehovah, Yahweh, Odin or Zeus, smiling down on you, happy with how well you spent your life, and gracious enough not mention the time your mom caught you, with the Sears catalog open to the bra section and spread across your lap behind a door that was supposed to be locked. Your old pet goldfish is there, swimming happily despite the last time you saw her she was spiraling down a flushed toilet.
It’s cathartic to exact revenge and grant favor in a world of your own justice because the Creator of the Universe thinks exactly like you and you alone. Heaven, a place of infinite peace and contentment, is comforting thought, where we console ourselves that the people we loved who died go and are waiting for us. And Hell is endless suffering and pain for those who oppose us. “He’ll get his in the end!” and “Go to Hell!” take on rounder, more meaningful connotation in light of our personal prejudice. Whether agonizing over that nasty co-worker or getting over the death of friend, it makes you feel better in the moment and is harmless, unless you take it seriously.