The Kingdom of Heaven

13 November 1998

You can read about it in the bible. You can ask your priest or pastor or even one of the devout believers who sit in the front pews every Sunday, and they can tell you about the beauty of the kingdom of heaven. None of them have ever been there, of course, yet it seems that they can recount even the minutest details about it as if they had just returned from there on a vacation – just ask them, it’s quite amusing. I’ll bet half of them could even show you slides. Oh, they’ll describe the sound of the angels’ trumpets, the seraphim and cherubim, all that shiny glory stuff. They'll make it sound like a really nice place.

When I was an awed child, I believed what they said, for having faith was what I was always taught. Looking back, I was really quite naïve then, for I knew nothing, and had to trust completely in others in order to learn. But as I grew in experience and wisdom, I began to doubt all the glory stories.

Now it always seemed curious to me that nobody except the near-deads and a select religiously deluded few ever behaved well enough to be accepted into the kingdom of heaven. I understand that this privilege is not something "earned", so to speak, but I mean that these were the only ones that even seemed to be trying to get there. I must admit that this observation gnawed away at the faith I then strove to keep. If the kingdom of heaven were really such a great place, I asked myself, why then, is most everybody on earth so absorbed with these transitory and ultimately meaningless worldly distractions? For truly, if they honestly and deeply believed in a heaven, would they not arise from their beds each day thinking, ‘What should I do today in order to get into the kingdom of heaven?’ Would that question not nag them incessantly? I know if I were a still a believer and still went to church, well, that’s what I would be thinking every morning and evening and all afternoon too.

Though I can’t say I thought of him incessantly, I was rather devoutly focused on god until, perhaps the age of six years. I still remember riding on the school bus, if nobody was sitting next to me, I’d imagine that Jesus was there, as an invisible companion. It used to comfort me so to talk to him, lonely child that I was. But as I have said, I began to see the world. I saw things that religion couldn’t explain. I saw the lackluster attitude that even the most devout I knew held in comparison to Jesus and his disciples. I began to doubt, and the more I thought, the more my suspicions grew. Maybe what first convinced me of religion’s implausibility was the story of the fall of satan.

It had always seemed sort of a dubious tale to me, even as a child, but I couldn’t put my finger on the apparent inconsistency until much later. See, the story of the fall of satan makes him out to be a pretty stupid guy. For why would anybody in his right mind leave a perfectly good spot in heaven to spend his days in eternal fire? Don’t forget now that satan is also supposed to be this really clever, tricky fellow, you know, thinking up all these elaborate concoctions, laying the most stealthy of stumbling blocks to trip up the citizens of earth into eternal damnation. These mutually exclusive characteristics seemed a great contradiction, and for many years I was puzzled.

When I grew up a little bit and entered into a bit of mild debauchery, though, I resolved the mystery. See, it reminded me a lot of the dating scene, the way religion said both god and satan wanted you. Just like men at the bar, after everything in a skirt. That’s what ignited my thought process, and it reminded me of a trick that men often used, the old good-cop/bad-cop routine.

If you read your bible, you’ll discover that there wasn’t always a hell. The casual Christian is sometimes surprised at this, but hell is really a quite recent development in the grand scheme of things. When the Universe was first founded, there was only a heaven and an earth. At first, this system sufficed. Religious fervor was high, and the population of earth strove for the kingdom of heaven. But as generations passed, the fervor gradually withered away. God found this trend a dire problem, and, as the reward for good behavior was apparently no longer sufficient, he decided to begin punishing sinful behavior with hell.

See, in the old system, the kingdom of heaven had two sections, one for the devout, and one for the less devout. The believers worshipped god all day long in glory, for every day is Sunday in heaven. But of course the non-believers sat in armchairs and watched professional football all day. Both groups were in their own separate form of paradise. But god became jealous as the religious zeal began to fade, and the ‘football’ group came to outnumber the ‘god’ group. Now as a loyal Bears fan, god couldn’t very well ban professional football - but he had to think of something!

So god secretly summoned his right-hand man, satan, for he was, back in the day, a good guy. After making sure none of the angels were eavesdropping, god explained the situation. To solve the problem, god figured that the sinners needed punishment. To this satan agreed. God explained about the lake of fire, the brimstone, the sulphur, and satan reiterated that it was a most excellent idea. When god said satan would have to become the devil, mascot and patron saint of hell, he protested vehemently, but as he was a faithful servant, he knew he must obey god. And so they acted out the well-orchestrated drama that you can read in the bible in order to frighten the sinners towards righteousness.

Yes, god created hell, and propaganda was advanced of rebellion and of fallen angels, the football watchers’ TV lounge in heaven was dismantled, and they were all cast down to hell with satan (god, however, kept his own personal TV to watch the Bears).

Subsequently, heaven and hell were much like your pastor can tell you. But many centuries passed, and by and by, satan got fed up with hell. Always being the bad-cop, never the good-cop – everybody knows you’ve got to take turns in order for the ruse to be sustained. But god refused to switch up, and that’s where he went wrong. He believed he was much too cool for the lowly job of being the devil.

Furthermore, god had stopped performing miracles or any displays of power to get the people of earth to believe in him. Once, in the old days, he had parted seas and turned water into wine, but for the last couple of millennia, he had just been sitting up there on his throne watching Bears’ games and doing no work whatsoever. Once, there had been a two-pronged attack, but now the complete burden of work fell to satan, who had to redouble his efforts in trickery and intimidation to keep the people of earth in line. It was most unfair of god, and satan had had it up to his horns with the situation, all give and no take.

So satan then engineered the true rebellion. His first step was to buy the biggest air conditioner he could find to chill the damned place out a little bit. And then he and his followers went up to heaven to get the retired TVs from heaven’s old football lounge. They sneaked them out while the people in heaven were kneeling down and bowing their heads in prayer.

With the new improvements, hell then wasn’t so bad anymore. When word of this got to god, he was quite upset and tried to summon his forces to destroy the rebels. But when three quarters of the population of heaven deserted for hell and football, god knew it was hopeless. Besides the one quarter who stayed in heaven were all old ladies, and would be no good in a fight anyways. So god sat dejectedly down in the spot where his throne used to be. He couldn’t believe they had even taken his throne!

And they brought the throne down to satan and they all sat around the air conditioner watching football. It was pretty fun, and that’s why I’m going to hell, see all the old people are wrong. So you won’t see me in church, but come on over to my place Sunday afternoon at one pm, and we’ll gather around my big screen and have our own little 'religious' celebration.

Now, maybe you doubt my explanation of things, but it’s certainly as likely as the story the bible purports. And who knows, maybe a couple thousand years from now, a deluded multitude will start believing my religious history, and it will become ‘official.’

Oh, but that’s not what I truly want! I would trade all I had if only heaven could be the way the pastors and true believers describe it! I could even settle for a world where people would live as if they were trying to get into the kingdom of heaven, even if it isn't true. Wouldn’t it be so much nicer a place than the world we know?