Part One
Someone was trying to save my soul via guilt. So he asked: “My brother, where will you spend eternity?” So I proceeded to give him a short lecture.
There are several options of where and how to spend eternity, as documented and believed by millions of people, each option as legitimate and as deeply emotionally held as the next one. I could be reincarnated as an earthworm, for being a troublesome human, according to the Buddhists and the adherents of Jainism and Sikhism. I could end up in front of Osiris, where my heart would be weighed for judgement in preparation for the underworld. Or I could end up in Valhalla, the Great Hall of Warriors… Or end up at the right hand of Yahweh, singing hallelujah to cymbals and trumpets forever. Or better still, I could end up in the bosom of 72 virgins with nipples like double turrets.
You see, there are literally thousands of options. Only one of these options do we have abundant evidence for: you will die and decay. The atoms that make up your erstwhile body will be recycled again to become components of plants and animals and other inanimate objects. In about a few billion years, when the sun is done with its career, it will die in grand style and all its planets with it, to become the raw materials for new stars and galaxies, and the rest of the universe.
From stars you came, to stars you shall return. Shine brightly while you still have the time to shine.
Evangelism over. Brother was more confused than when he started. That cocksure certainty of the Evangelist had vanished like water vapour. Brother was only aware of The Hallelujah Place: the sad result of reading just one book and carrying about arrogant ignorance.
Part Two
If the afterlife is so important, everybody should have exactly the same information about it by now. Also, this information should have been such that every single person should be able to verify the claims independently, without having to rely on third party sources.
Unfortunately, what we have are widely conflicting claims: some say the reward is everlasting sex with 72 virgins; for some it is chanting hallelujah for eternity; for some others it is to be reincarnated as a better person; yet for some others it is a family reunion with your ancestors, including your stingy Uncle and your foul tempered Aunt; while for some unmanageable children, it is an eternity in a chocolate factory. In the end, the afterlife merchants can’t reach a consensus.
What we know so far and which everyone can independently verify irrespective of creed and nationality is that we all have one shot at life. This is our one single shot at doing all the good that needs to be done, to experience all the happiness we can, to help all the people we can help, to bring about all the inventions and breakthroughs that needs to be brought about and attain all the greatness we can attain. Why can’t we focus on that for now?
Part Three
Let us close our Bibles and Qur’ans and let’s just discuss.
Why do you want there to be heaven and hell?
So I got a couple of reasons from my interactions with friends on why they desperately need heaven and hell to be real.
1. This life is just too ‘wahalaful’. There has to be a place of rest. It’s only fair.
2. So when we die, that’s all? Nothing else? That’s cruel and unfair. We can’t just die! There has to be a way to continue to live.
3. So everyone will just die and we won’t meet again at a grand reunion where we’ll meet all our beloved grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends…?
4. So how do I get rewarded for all the time I could have been naughty but I wasn’t or for all my good deeds? That’s not fair!
5. So Hitler would just go unpunished? Yea, he was defeated and killed himself… But is that really enough punishment for killing 6 million Jews (at least he supervised the killing)? And all the thieves that were never caught and brought to justice? Rapists? Murderers? No eternity of punishment for them? Nah, that’s not fair!
6. If heaven and hell were not real, nobody would behave. We’ll all just start raping people and stealing and being horrible!
Add yours and let’s address the points one by one. This should be fun.
Part Four
When I was much younger, my idea, scratch that, my firm belief of what Heaven was is as follows: a place where there would be no house chores, no school, no homework, nobody to send me on errands, no adults around, three hefty barrels filled to the brim with amala, ìlasa (ewédú’s cousin, native to my home town) and bush meat soaked in red stew with an aroma that makes one giddy. Voicing out this belief to anyone was sure to get any child beaten to death. I’m serious. That place I describe is the very idea of sin and depravity for a child where I grew up. Unfortunately, if only one adult had taken time to listen and promise me such a place when I died, I am absolutely certain that I would have been the best behaved child in the world. That would be something grand to look forward to.
It is usually the very things that elude us in this life that we dream about in the afterlife. I wonder what it was with Arabs and sex that the idea of the afterlife has to be 72 virgins. For goodness sake, what the hell is fantastic about having sex non-stop with 72 virgins? One really has to be very sick for the idea to be appealing in the first instance. Sex. 72 virgins. Forever. It is either one is seriously sexually depraved or sexually repressed.
You actually have to be promised 72 vaginas for eternity for you to be a decent human being! I can’t understand it. Now that I think about my childhood vision of heaven, I think I was really a grand idiot. I don’t want to offer an opinion on the vision of a heaven with 72 virgins as the ultimate reward to look forward to. That would be blasphemous.
Part Five
Since you religious folks won’t let us rest with your obsession with the afterlife (as if this present life is not enough to enjoy and live usefully and responsibly), I am going to find you something more to worry about: the before-life. You see, before you were born, your spirit was living somewhere else, in another spiritual universe, with good and evil forces. There you were given freewill (don’t even get me started on that one) and you could freely associate with good or evil spirits.
You see, your current life is a reward-punishment for your activities in the before-life. There is a scoring system that factors your before-life activities into your current life activities to determine where you’ll spend your afterlife. Your before-life takes 70% of the marks and current life takes 30%. You can’t remember your before-life and what you did there, or if you had control over what you did there, right? Good. It was designed that way by The Master-Who-Cannot-Be-Questioned.
So if you had failed your before-life exam (like scoring 40/400 in JAMB), you’re just joking here in the current life (your post JAMB score is practically useless) and you’re so going to hell in the afterlife no matter what you do.
So there it is. Please respect yourself. Don’t even think about asking me where this came from. You don’t have the monopoly of stupidity..
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