Visions Of Heaven

Most people’s idea of heaven is just a continuation of the things that bring them pleasure on earth. They might pay lip service to wanting to bask in God’s love and righteousness, but that’s not really true. If you could delve into the subconscious of your average man, into that little place in his head where visions of heaven lay, you wouldn’t see any trace of God’s love and righteousness, no yearning for a higher plane of consciousness, not even a soothing white light. There would be no desire for anything fundamentally different from what you find here on earth. The contents of his paradise would be no different than the content of his typical daydreams, except they would go on forever. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, by the way, but it means that Mr. Average Consumerist American’s vision of the Great Beyond boils down to something like this: NASCAR and football for eternity; putting little white balls into little holes; a collection of sports cars; a harem of pliant young women who don’t mind his belly or his hairy back because they can see his inner beauty … new episodes of Sports Center and Two and a Half Men every hour of every day; an occasional visit to the wife and kids … The most spiritual items in his utopia would be a valley full of nachos and a cascading spring of Bud Light.

But why shouldn’t he confine his aspirations to such things? What do our so-called spiritual leaders have to offer in its place? Mr. Consumer’s heaven might be intellectually and spiritually destitute, but at least it allows for some fun. It is vastly more appealing than singing campfire songs with vacuous born again Christians for all time, or listening to Billy Graham sermons, or any of the other the bone-dry pleasures Judeo-Christianity has on tap. If the Mormons have their way there won’t even be any coffee. Shit, even my bank gives me free coffee. At least the Muslim afterlife offers you seventy-two virgins. That might sound barbarous and horrid, but stack it against the white Christian American version before you judge: No sex, no drugs, no booze, nothing, just an endless, arid prayer meeting with the likes of Rick Warren, Joel Osteen, the Christian Coalition and a few murderers who got right with God on death row. Which door which you choose?

And it gets worse. Michael Bloomberg might be there. Just ask him. He’ll tell you. This is what he recently told an interviewer: “I am telling you that if there is a God, when I get to heaven I’m not stopping to be interviewed. I am heading straight in. I have earned my place in heaven. It’s not even close.”

All that and a rich prick too? No thanks.