06/02/00 - 04:42 AM

A story as told me by a good friend.

�There was big Mafia guy, who killed tons of people, ran big casinos, stole stuff, bribed cops to get away with it, everything. He was a horrible man. And he dies. So, he's with his guardian angel, and they walk into this huge casino and he bets on roulette and he wins and he bets some more and he wins again. Every game he plays, he keeps winning and every woman he meets wants to fuck him and he's never turned down for a date or a fuck. He spends weeks there, gambling and winning every time but after awhile, he gets sick of it. In fact, it really starts to bother him because it's no fun he ALWAYS wins there's no fun to the game and everything he does turns out well, there's no spark to his existence. Finally, he goes to his guardian angel and says �I hate it here! I have to get out! Take me to hell, I don't care, I don't want to be here in heaven anymore� and the guardian angel says �Who said you were in heaven?��

Perfection is boring. Striving for perfection, on the other hand, is a great adventure.

Can you imagine what it would be like to live the perfect life, to have everything go your way all the time? Sure, at first it might be marvelous, but eventually, the novelty wears off. Variety is the spice of life. How can you really appreciate winning, if you haven�t ever experienced the disappointment of losing?

I do not believe in eternal heaven or hell. Why? Because I would not want to go to a place where everything is perfect and wholesome and good. Not for eternity. Can you even fathom eternity? Then to place me there with all that eternal happiness and fortune. Well, it�s for forever, and I don�t want it. It sounds boring.

Of course, being perfect, heaven couldn�t be boring because boredom would not exist in such a flawless realm. Still, when I try to comprehend the thought of complete and total satisfaction forever and ever, well the idea seems less than attractive.

Then there is eternal hell. Punishment forever for cheating on your taxes and not asking God to forgive you. Doesn�t seem quite fair does it? I don�t believe that God would condemn the soul, his own creations, for eternity because of mistakes that they had made while being human. Human, a form that is everything less than perfect. Humanity, a race that wallows in it�s iniquities and breathes to be bad as much as it does to be good.

God did not make us to be perfect, so why punish us for eternity being what we are?

My ideas. Heaven or hell can be temporary, a predetermined time can spent in either, or both, based upon whatever good, or evil, committed while human.

And then, after your sentence is up. You come back, as another human, a different life, a fresh start. Live again, God watches, sees how you fair this time. Did you learn your lessons? Or will you repeat the same mistakes? You will not remember your past lives the way one remembers yesterday, but you will have inklings or clues about what is the right or wrong thing for you to do. It�s called instinct.

I believe in this because I want to, because with this system, I get a fresh start next time. It doesn�t matter how badly this life turned out to be, that my childhood was non-existent, that my heart is becoming stone, as long as I have tried to make the best of it. And after I die, I get a fresh start, maybe a life with less obstacles, maybe a sheltered life. Or maybe one that is worse than this one. Nevertheless, I get to start over and I don�t have to spend eternity with my face cracked to a wide, yet perfect, smile. Or burning forever in hell, depending on how you would determine my life was, good or evil.

People laugh when I say that I believe what I want. But to me, that is how all religions started. And everyone makes a choice with his or her beliefs. They believe what they want, or what they think they want, according to how they were brought up and whatever mechanical religious babble they have digested. From their family, friends, neighborhood, whatever. The different between these people and me is that I developed my own religious mumbo-jumbo to follow rather than obediently trailing after the teachings of others. I have spent my time in church and listened to the followers. I even believed very much for a long time. But as I got older, I found more flaws in the way things were organized. I became exasperated at the lack of adjustment to the rules even though considerable time has progressed since the original instructions were scrawled out. I saw it as an institution that governs by fear instead of faith, and I decided to separate myself from that.

I do not blame others for wanting to be a part of a church, or even a group of people that share the same beliefs as they do. I commend them actually, for trying so hard to follow a strict regimen that was written for men much more primitive than the modern man. I just choose not to do the same. And of course, I am ridiculed for it. But I choose this path anyway because it makes me happier and more at ease. I feel I can love my God because he is more understanding and forgiving than I originally thought.

And if I am wrong, I suppose I will spend forever in hell for it. But if I believe things are that way, then this is the only life I�ve got, and shouldn�t I try to be as happy as I possibly could in it?