FanPost

RRRR: Heaven, Hell or some other magical land?

In order to get married at the church that my wife wanted to get married at, I had to fake like I was a Christian and act like I wanted to join the congregation. One of the requirements was to submit myself to the brainwashing attempts of a silly and stupid man that we will call, Pastor F, for our purposes.

At one of the various membership classes we attended, Pastor F regaled us with a story about an 80 year old woman in his congregation who had been a devout Christian her whole life and had attended church every Sunday of her life.

Apparently, her cousin came to visit her and informed her that, by George, she had never been baptized. So they rushed to Pastor F and had him conduct a hasty baptism at church that Sunday. Pastor F said he thanked God every night that he had been able to baptize that woman before she shuffled off this mortal coil (he didn't actually say shuffled off this mortal coil, I think he said "flew into the arms of God" or "passed into the blessed plane" or some kind of flowery bullshit that is justified by a flowery cult).

I raised my hand, "Yes, Rhubarb?"

"So what you're implying is that if she hadn't been baptized that she would have went to Hell? is that what you're saying because that doesn't seem right."

"Well, no, uh, uh, well, not in my book."

"Your book is the Bible are you telling me that anyone is allowed to interpret the Bible any way they want?"

The other three couples were shocked out of their faux happiness and my wife is kicking me under the table.

"Uh, well, no, not exactly"

"Well, I was baptized and I have proof, does that mean I don't have to go to church every Sunday?"

I forget what his response was but he utilized some time honored technique that religious leaders use to slink out from under the weight of logic and the class continued on and we ended up getting married and during our marriage he made a big show of it religiously and everyone in the church is looking at me like, "you motherfucking hypocrite standing up there listening to this bullshit."

A few years later I see him again in the grocery store and he asks me where I have been (they had been sending us offering envelopes and letters of concern for our spirituality).

"Well, you know we've been busy--we bought a house, we have a kid, I started a new job. You seem like a nice guy but I don't have any time to go to church."

"May God rest your soul, Scott"

"Thanks for that I appreciate it."

I am almost 100% certain that Pastor F doesn't believe in what he preaches. He has a responsibility to generate money, spread the word of God, marry and baptize people but I get the idea somewhere along the line he realized what he did for a living was a giant ball of bullshit and that is when I think he probably became the most effective at his job. I take this to heart in my work as I used manipulation towards an emotional person in order to close a deal yesterday. I am basically following the word of God and I have already been baptized anyway.

So I guess my questions are, am I going to Hell, Heaven or somewhere else all together? Is it healthy to believe in something just because everyone else does even though there is zero proof of that something existing? How long does it take for fiction to become fact and how strong does the influence have to be from the rich and powerful? Are religious people inherently superior morally to non-believers? Am I just wired this way biologically or did "God" make me this way or did I make a choice to be this way?

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