Loose Canon - The Acts of the Apastles Submissions

[DaveL]

Cool, well let's get out there and spread the word. Wait...hang on...I can see you are already doing that...

OK, carry on then chaps!

[Ravi Oli]

It really doesn't make sense to me to have 'degrees of heaven'. Would not the do gooders, the meek and mild, the unselfish self-sacrificers of the mortal world feel uncomfortable lording it over their fellows in Heaven? If they revel in having their boots licked then surely they are false and undeserving of their heavenly rewards?

What diference is there between the Evangelists saving souls and the Hannibal Lecters sending them earlier to their maker? Is Dexter an Angel of His Noodliness smiting foul murderers down, who will stand on His right when his time on Earth ends, or just another soul lost?

My belief is that there should be a yardstick... like a 'You must be this tall to go on this ride'... so you are allowed 'so much sin' before your transcension to Heaven is voided. And that's what it should be for those who fail... the Great Void, The Nothingness for all Eternity, the total Ceasing of Existence.

Only problem is... all the 'others' have the 'get out of jail free card'... that sins will be forgiven for all who are truly repentent to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. That's what all the religious zealots and suicide bombers of this world fall back on... prove that wrong or find a better option...

[Qwertyuiopasd]

The trick to reconciling this, I think, is the Loose Moral Standards. True, the better of a person you are in life the better reward you get in Heaven, but 1) Who's counting? (The FSM? We know how unreliable He is) and 2) Who's keeping everyone in their respective reward areas?

Moral reform is possible in Heaven, so even those who start out at the bottom of the volcano may eventually drink from the Cup of the Caldera. It is said that with a finite amount of matter and an infinite amount of time, every possible combination of that matter must necessarily happen an infinite number of times. Heaven is like this, I think, where the matter isn't so much the matter of Heaven (for Heaven is, of course, infinite), but it's the different levels of Heaven (The FSM is only so creative). Given an eternal afterlife, everyone gets every reward eventually, and always.

Of course, there are other Pastafarians who simply reject the idea of any sort of partitioned Heaven, and believe strictly the original scripture. When anyone dies, they go to heaven, and there is a Beer Volcano and a Stripper Factory. Nothing more, no less.

[Ravi Oli]

Mine eyes have opened Qwerty... I've always denied the idea of Heaven for the very reasons I spoke of above. I just realized it's our SOUL goes to Heaven and that spiritual essence leaves the shackles of our earthly container behind. No one is confined to their earthly form... there are no Heavenly forms that are downright fugly... EVERYONE looks like Gods and Godesses so there is no need of sin. If a evil sociopath does get in too and unrepented tries to bully, murder, rape and pillage... well it would be like trying to stick a pin in the air and thus a great amusment to the good and a PRIVATE HELL for the evil doer. So Heaven is really both Heaven AND Hell!!

Oh crap... that just raises me another quandry. We all imagine our Heavenly rewards as physical... like beer, strippers, flash cars and houses, endless banquets that don't make us fat. But as spirits how do we consume beer that runeth over the volcanic cup? Someone just shoot me... please.

[Qwertyuiopasd]

Simple: it's spirit beer for your spirit self, basically. Heaven being so infinitely perfect, it is impossible for us as living humans shackled to our corporeal forms and perceptions to truly understand how it will be, so understanding it in terms of corporeal things is the closest we can get. There will certainly be things we perceive as liquids to imbibe and fill the soul, and there will certainly be angelic beings that we in our earthly forms would perceive as strippers, but to truly know how Heaven is, we will have to wait until we are called their by our Noodly Master ourselves.

Fear not, the Great Globular One will provide for all, even if it doesn't make sense. The concept of drunk metaphysics comes to mind... Such are the tribulations of having an alcoholic creator.