If you think choking on a little tear gas and pepper spray and being locked up with a bunch of flea-ridden street urchins humming Rage Against the Machine ditties for 72 hours was a drag, you're in for a cruel shock. Let me give you a little sample of what's in store for those of you who have been taking the Lord's name in vain, indulging in Satanic rock 'n' roll rituals, and habitually masturbating like retarded baboons.
Red-hot iron stakes will be driven through your hands, feet, and chest. Your flesh will be shaved from your bones, starting from your head and working downward. You will be forced to climb up and down a mountain of red-hot embers. You will then proceed to the Sword Leaf Wood, where your hands, feet, ears, and nose will be cut off. After that you will swim in the Caustic River. You will be pulled from the river on the end of a giant fish hook. You will be asked what you want and, when you reply that you are hungry, you will be fed a meal of red-hot copper, washed down with molten lead.
Okay, I lied. That's not what's going to happen. It's going to be worse.
What you've just read is actually a partial description of one of the various Buddhist Hells where people with bad karma spend a bit of time before being reincarnated. "Buddhists? Those bald, mellow paragons of ohmness came up with that?" (If you've ever wondered why Krishnas are perpetually dancing around with those stupid, blissed-out grins on their faces while their Buddhist cousins always look so somber and dour -- now you know.)
As awful as Buddhist Hell sounds, you just gotta know Christian Hell (a.k.a. the real thing) is gonna be way, way, WAY worse. For one thing, I can't imagine those guys in burgundy robes pointing and snickering, elbowing each other in the ribs and guffawing as you fall into the "Hell of Filth" (they may even sneak you a cold drink of water when nobody's looking). You should have it so easy. No, when God comes down to kick off the big game, it's going to make an extended purgatorial stay in Buddhist Hell look like a trip to Disneyland with a head full of really clean Mickey Mouse acid.
The Book of Revelation hints at what will come, but doesn't say a thing about how wicked scum like Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, J. Edgar Hoover, and Bob Hope will be running the show. Unlike the guys in the burgundy robes, this vengeful pack of bastards will be hooting and hollering, waving their cowboy hats around, and guzzling Bud as their faithful, hunchbacked automatons inflict unimaginable tortures upon your person. Legions of honey-haired, big-breasted teenage cheerleader zombies from Nebraska will do their "rah-rah-sis-boom-bah!" routine while you are force-fed mountains of maggot-infested flesh and human excrement, as closet-case sodomites like Oral Roberts, Billy Graham, and Jerry Falwell take turns having their way with you. (Even those who generally enjoy that kind of thing will take no pleasure in being savaged by the likes of that lot.) Every day will be filled with the paralyzing self-loathing that comes at the end of a three-day coke-fueled bender; those soot-covered, neverending days of angst when the only thing that stops you from sticking a gun in your mouth is the knowledge that you don't deserve to die, and that things will, eventually, get better. Well, when the clock strikes 2000, suicide will no longer be a solution to your worldly woes -- it will, in fact, not even be a option anymore, 'cause there's nowhere left to go.
There is, however, an outside chance the Muslims are right about matters theological, but the odds are very long. If you hear news of a giant, one-eyed beast (no, no not that giant, one-eyed beast) with the letters KFR (kafir = infidel) on his forehead coming from a far-off island and riding a white donkey, you'll know it's time to face Mecca and get on your knees for Allah.
If the Muslims are right, that creature, known as Al-Dajjal, will wreak destruction upon the entire planet, with the exception of Mecca and Medina, for 40 days. At the end of the 40 days Jesus will return to Earth from Heaven. (Yes, Muslims believe the story of Jesus. They just happen to think that, since Muhammad got his message from God 600 years after the Romans made sure Jesus would never eat M&Ms again -- they keep slipping through his hands! -- their cause is the true cause.) Jesus' reign will last for 40 years, according to Islamic scriptures, and it will be a time of happiness, love, and prosperity for all humanity: "Sheep and wolves will be seen together; children will play with serpents."
But this is the good ol' U. S. of A., and the Muslims ain't right. As Jesse Helms keeps telling us, "Uncle Sam didn't maim, mutilate, and murder millions so hard-working 'mericans would have to bow down before the false god of rag-heads and sand-niggers." Hallelujah!
There's a shitstorm of ugly blowin' in, brothers and sisters, and all you sinners are going to be hard pressed to find shelter. Like the T-shirts say, "Jesus is coming -- and boy, is he pissed." If what Thoreau said about jail being the only place for a just man in an unjust society is applicable to the hereafter, heaven doesn't strike me as much of an alternative to the aforementioned fate of sinners.
We are all, finally and truly, damned if we do and damned if we don't, because "Heaven" will undoubtedly be filled with vile degenerates who spent their lives terrorizing, raping, and oppressing innocent people just to sneak in at the last minute with sycophantic deathbed repentings. Heaven? As a very witty and obscure Bellingham poet, Allyfa Burroughf, put it, "I'd rather read the unrequited love poetry of 16-year-old girls" -- and eat the bloody vomit of Ebola-infected lepers.
So I say, fuck Jesus! And fuck his old man, too. I have no desire to spend forever under the tyranny of an insecure megalomaniacal freak who runs around commanding everyone, "Worship me! Worship me!" like some shitfaced drag queen at a Pride Week ball.
But before you condemn my heathen, sacrilegious ass to whatever version of Hell you decide best suits my sin of not groveling at your feet, I want to know one thing, Mr. Holiest of Holies: If you don't make mistakes, why in Hell's name are you here?
