Heaven and Hell, A Delicious Irony
In the light of several serious and fruitless discussions here, I will let you all in on a funny. For the last several weeks, our secular group, The Northern Prairie Secular Society, has been meeting at a local coffee shop. We love to sit around sipping coffee and having great skeptical conversation. Unfortunately, the choice of coffee shops in Bismarck is limited on a Sunday morning. Many shops simply aren’t open and others just don’t have the seating to have all of us in one area, but we found an acceptable choice downtown. This coffee shop has a small but adjustable seating area in the main room, but also has access to a conference room in the basement. For the first few meetings and to the horror of everyone, we just arranged the tables upstairs and had our sinister atheistic conversations right there in public. This worked well. Life was good.
But we decided to try a few other possibilities and for a few weeks we stayed away. When we arrived back at the end of January, we discovered that an evangelical church had asked the coffee shop if they could have full religious services in their main room on Sundays. For what I imagine were business reasons, the shop agreed. So on this fateful day last month, we entered the shop/church in understandable confusion and realized we have been supplanted. Here was a small but complete evangelical worship service raging out of control in the coffee shop complete with the laying on of hands. The shop owners graciously allowed us the conference room for our discussions and we descended into the basement and have been there every Sunday.
Ah but the irony of the affair kills me. Picture the scene. Godly Christians worship joyously in the well-lit and airy upstairs while the dirty atheists slink to the dark basement to have their godless mutterings. There such a heaven and hell element to the whole affair that I find irresistible, and I’ll be damned if I don’t chuckle every time I think of it. We have to walk right into the midst of their service to get our coffee and stand there while it’s being made, music blaring, sermons preaching. I try not to smile: I really do, but thus far, I am unable to resist. I want to put up a sign indicating where both the Christians and atheists should go — up and down, Heaven and Hell, respectively, complete with halos and fiery illustrations. I wonder if they’d see the humor in it.
In truth, the conference room works well for us. It fully adaptable and private yet large enough to fit our growing needs, but to sit there while the hymns carry down from above is the best reason to keep coming. The complete dichotomy of the two events in such close proximity thrills me. The irony is scrumptious, so tell me, how could I not love it? I feel we’re the antidote to the superstition happening above. Up here’s what you may want to believe, but down here’s what reality really consists of.
So if any of you are ever in Bismarck on a Sunday morning, stop in. For saint of sinner, we have it all.
The sinners are downstairs.
P.S. I actually know the pastor and worked for him on a commercial six months ago. Nice guy, but I’m sure he now thinks I’m the devil.
P.P.S. Here the ads are. 1. 2. and 3. I had no idea they were online. They’re for a universal access voting service our state provides.
P.P.P.S. I’m the fat guy.
That’s … delicious.
I’m Just curiouse but which group has the larger number of attendees?
Hahaha. Christians tend to draw huge numbers, but the real knowledge can be obtained just below their feet. It is ironic. Does this congregation have any clue that you are down there? I wonder how long before they are laying their hands on the floor while praying for Satan to leave the basement.
I’m glad you find it humorous, KK. I would find it uncomfortable and creepy.
Just a thought. Have you considered playing your own music? Maybe the theme from Halloween or some such… Just loud enough that they can hear it between hymns.
Take a goat downstairs with you and a really big knife.. That would get them worried.
Mind you it would also imply that you thought that there was actually somebody to sacrifice a goat so maybe not.
Maybe just a goat then.. That would certainly concern me!
Maybe, I should dress my son in some sort of sacrificial robe. The group of us then could solemnly march by with swords and knives in hand chanting the words printed on the One Ring in the language of Mordor.
I wonder how long it would take for the police to arrive?
Now when I was a kid that would actually have appealed to me…scary.
Now now, you guys. That’s how rumors get started.
We don’t need SWAT teams breaking up our conversations about movies, books, and politics! I think some of them were surprised that I’m actually friendly!
Tempting as it may be to be to play on their fears, I think living well is the best revenge.
If your group remains courteous and friendly, it might at least dispel the myth that all non-religious folk are predisposed to moral turpitude.
To borrow one of their phrases:
“Ye shall know them by their fruits.”
In a period in my life, I received inspiration for the composition of a couple of short stories, including reflections. One of them was about this topic, the u-topy of heaven and hell. It is not long, but a tad too long for this comment. Could I perhaps send it to you, attached to an e-mail? Just for fun – although it’s not comical. I’ll try to re-write it, as English is not my mother language.-
All that offensive brainwashing going on right there! Ugh! How can you stand it? It gives me the heeby-jeebies just thinking about it.
And you know what they’ll probably do, once they realize that there are atheists down there – they’ll try to corner you all by the front door and convert you. I bet ya!
Yeah, but we are legion and have power on our side. Parts of me would love to see them try. Except that I personally know and like the pastor and am unwilling to cause him and his family unnecessary pain. Damned evolutionarily inspired morality.
It is a small world. You should be here though when they crank up the hymns for the six people upstairs. The sounds come echoing down to “hell” making us giggle like schoolboys with a Playboy. Life is good.
OT, but the moderator/host over at Eagle Cam mentioned earlier that the eggs should hatch on or around the 12th of March.
Man, that is too cool. I just went back there to see what I could see and was annoyed at the black screen. Obviously the damned thing wasn’t working. Then I remembered it’s night. There are time when I wonder if I’d had a stroke.
Intelligent design, my ass!
Greetings, and long may you continue to enjoy your Sunday morning get-togethers in the Vaults Beneath. Pity it’s not licensed premises, or you could enjoy a glass of ‘Casillero del Diablo’ with the chat.
It seems to me that there are a couple of big questions behind your Bible study, the first being ‘How can anyone take this stuff seriously these days, knowing what we do now?’ to which the answer is probably something like ‘Inertia’ (it’s been the Good Book for our parents, and their parents, and so on back . . .) added perhaps to a form of the Emperor’s New Clothes syndrome, which involves mentally blocking out anything that might suggest that Holy Writ could ever be Holy Rot.
The second question is “How did this stuff get taken seriously in the first place?” and the answer, or at least part of it, is (I believe) to be found in a book called ‘The Martyrdom or Man’ by Winwood Reade, which shocked Victorian England when it was first published in 1872. The author set out to write a history of Africa and ended up attempting a history of the world. It’s divided into four rather long chapters – War, Religion, Liberty and Intellect, and I wouldn’t recommend you to read the whole book, particularly while you are slogging through the Bible.
However, the chapter on religion has some interesting passages, such as this one (p137 in my edition):
‘These gods are looked upon as kings. Their characters are human, and are reflected from the minds of those who have created them. Whatever the arithmetical arrangement of the gods may be – single or triune, dual or plural – they are in all countries and in all times made by man in his own image.’
So if the ancient Hebrews imagined their one god as a king of heaven (like an earthly king only more so) they evidently took as their model the kings they knew: cruel, capricious, vindictive and vain. That would explain a lot about the behaviour of The Lord in the OT.
If you ever chance upon a copy of this book, it’s well worth looking into, even though you might be bored stiff by most of it. Secondhand copies can be found on the Internet (no need to pay silly prices – Thinker’s Library edition is OK and cheap) or you can get it on Kindle for even less.
Keep up the good work! I take my hat off to you,
Roy
Or it’s available for free (totally legal — the copyright’s long-expired) at Ex Classics dot-com. According to the download page, Holmes recommends it to Watson, in The Sign Of Four, but I came across it while looking for English As She Is Spoke by José da Fonseca & Pedro Carolinho, which I’ve only just dipped into, but heartily recommend to Amy and fans of her Monday Manglish posts.
Oooh–free books. What’s not to like? And I’ll look for English As She Is Spoke (as I have finally been able to download Kindle for PC, and am now a force to be reckoned with;-))
KK I applaud you and your study group. I don’t publicly announce my atheism for fear of stigma. In fact when religion comes up as a topic with my co-workers I call myself Catholic. I don’t think that my fear is groundless. I haven’t met any atheist Generals in the Army, and I’m sure their immediate subordinates are believers as well. Only my family and close friends know I’m an atheist.