I have been trying to imagine how I would feel and what I would think if the Christians turned out to be right. Well, if a particular sect turned out to be right, since they don't agree with each other. Anyhow, I was just sitting here imagining what I would think if I died and found myself, you know, not actually dead, and there was God and heaven and hell and so on.
I would be terribly disappointed. I would be scared too, since I have often ridiculed god and he is apparently a pretty vindictive bastard. I would imagine burning for a long time would suck a lot. But beyond the fear, I would just feel...disgusted. I mean, imagine the universe really did turn out to be this stupid, simplistic thing, drawn in crude crayon, a plot riddled with awkward holes, every unknown pasted over with God-did-it, the whole thing slapped together in a week on an egotistical whim, made and ruled by an arbitrary psychopath who only created humans because he was tired of picking the wings off of flies.
I would have to accept it, because I must accept what is true no matter what I wish were true. But to think Jack Chick or Jerry Falwell had it right would be sickening, and even if they were not so annoying, to think that the Bible turned out to be literally true would just be a horribly unsatisfying conclusion.
What a stupid, puerile ending to it all. What a miserable disappointment, like that feeling you get when you see a really awful movie, especially if you thought it was going to be really good--like getting to the end of Star Wars only to discover Darth Vader and Jar Jar Binks were secretly brothers!!! It would just be so profoundly annoying.
To know that these blinkered fundies were right and the universe really is a giant lightshow for the entertainment of humans; to see that all those silly fossils were just a test of faith; to realize that the Lord God Almighty really was worried about menstruating women, and witches, and really did want a tribute of Golden Hemmorhoids and Mice; to have that sinking feeling that in the end the whole thing really was just some arbitrary idiotic test to reward the slavishly obedient...that alone would be hell enough.
Well, the burning forever part would suck too.
This is one reason why I don't follow the Pascal's Whatsamathinger, where there is no harm in believing and could be harm in not believing so why not believe. (The other reason is that I cannot believe such idiotic twaddle even if I wanted to). To believe that the universe really is as crude and simplistic as the Bible claims is just repulsive. There is harm in believing it, at least for me, because it would make me ill, even without noting the hideously twisted morality of it.
So what would you think if it turned out to be true?
I would be terribly disappointed. I would be scared too, since I have often ridiculed god and he is apparently a pretty vindictive bastard. I would imagine burning for a long time would suck a lot. But beyond the fear, I would just feel...disgusted. I mean, imagine the universe really did turn out to be this stupid, simplistic thing, drawn in crude crayon, a plot riddled with awkward holes, every unknown pasted over with God-did-it, the whole thing slapped together in a week on an egotistical whim, made and ruled by an arbitrary psychopath who only created humans because he was tired of picking the wings off of flies.
I would have to accept it, because I must accept what is true no matter what I wish were true. But to think Jack Chick or Jerry Falwell had it right would be sickening, and even if they were not so annoying, to think that the Bible turned out to be literally true would just be a horribly unsatisfying conclusion.
What a stupid, puerile ending to it all. What a miserable disappointment, like that feeling you get when you see a really awful movie, especially if you thought it was going to be really good--like getting to the end of Star Wars only to discover Darth Vader and Jar Jar Binks were secretly brothers!!! It would just be so profoundly annoying.
To know that these blinkered fundies were right and the universe really is a giant lightshow for the entertainment of humans; to see that all those silly fossils were just a test of faith; to realize that the Lord God Almighty really was worried about menstruating women, and witches, and really did want a tribute of Golden Hemmorhoids and Mice; to have that sinking feeling that in the end the whole thing really was just some arbitrary idiotic test to reward the slavishly obedient...that alone would be hell enough.
Well, the burning forever part would suck too.
This is one reason why I don't follow the Pascal's Whatsamathinger, where there is no harm in believing and could be harm in not believing so why not believe. (The other reason is that I cannot believe such idiotic twaddle even if I wanted to). To believe that the universe really is as crude and simplistic as the Bible claims is just repulsive. There is harm in believing it, at least for me, because it would make me ill, even without noting the hideously twisted morality of it.
So what would you think if it turned out to be true?
And the Lord God spake unto them, saying, "A Great Fire be bound within all things, and know ye that be it unleashed, its energy shall be as like its mass, multiplied by the swiftness of the light, and so multiplied again." And they were much amazed. --II Physicists, Chapter IV, verses 5-8.
