The Hereafter

Most people follow whatever faith their parents, grandparents, and their grandparent's parents have chosen.  This wasn't good enough for me, though.  I tend to overthink things - kind of like a modern day Hamlet.  The problem is that there are simply too many choices.  And the price for choosing wrongly can be pretty severe.  I mean, if you don't choose the right religeon, AND often the right sub-sect of said religeon, it's off to eternal suffering you go.

Fire and brimstone.  Darkness.  The cold void of nothingness.  Mosquitos THIS BIG.  All of the socks you've ever lost, reeking with foot odor.  And a demon who gives you wedgies and plays Seasons In The Sun on your elastic waistband.  Forever.

At first glance, it may seem that the best choice is to choose the religeon that will deny you entrance to Heaven if you don't believe in their faith, and has the worst possible Hell.  You still have a chance with the more tolerant religeons of receiving eternal salvation, and you've also cleared yourself of the worst possible fate.

But, ask yourself this.  Do you really want to go to a Heaven that is run by a God so anal as to refuse entrance to the best of people, simply because they held a different belief?  I mean, with any religeon, there is a fair chunk of the world's population that will have never even heard of it, and another chunk that may have heard the name, but nothing of it's teachings.  If that God refuses entrance to Heaven to these people, imagine what other rules there are once you get there.

I think going to a Heaven of this sort would kind of be like moving into a home with a very strict home-owner's association.  No playing your harp after 8pm, and Heaven forbid you should leave it unattended on your cloud.  That would mean a write-up for sure.  Everyone would have to wear the same style robes, and they would probably take three hours to iron.  Halos would have to be polished until they glowed with at least 1400 lumens.  I think that this Heaven would look nice, but it would really suck to live there for eternity.

Like Hamlet, I have thought and thought about this and have decided, for the time being at least, not to decide.  This may throw me into some purgatory someday, but I think that if I just try to be the best person that I can be, do good as I see it, it will at least make my life on Earth more enjoyable.  And if I do make it into some Heaven someday, it will be one that I will feel good living in.