Around The Bend
Everyone remembers the concept of dog or cat heaven from childhood. Toddlers needed to be comforted about the death of Fido or Snickers, and from this the theological concept of separate heavens for each and every animal species was born and passed along by parents. It follows, of course, that if dogs have their own heavenly realm then there must also be an ant heaven and a mosquito heaven -- a place in the clouds in which triillions upon trillions of ants and mosquitoes fly around with little insect angel wings.
Not to mention snake heaven, wildbeest heaven, bird heaven, giraffe heaven, grasshopper heaven, pelican heaven, trout heaven, worm heaven...the list is infinite.
Strict conservative constructionists will tell you that God doesn't love lower animal species as much as he loves homo sapiens and therefore they don't rate a heaven. When they're dead, they're dead as a blackened remnant of a leaf floating up and away from a bonfire. That's arrogance, of course. The mind of God is so vast and dazzling and exquisitely perfect that if He/She even deigned to consider which life forms deserved to peacefully frolic in some spiritually serene after-life realm, He/She would surely regard all of creation as one unified and equal-opportunity symphony with one species singled out above all the others because of a semi-developed brainpan and the ability to speak and write and make movies like 2012, G.I. Joe and Transformers 2.
Either ants, dogs and giraffes go to heaven along with humans when they die, or we're all equally mulch with no choir, no clouds, no Robin Williams walking around with his dog, no Joe Pendleton looking to play quarterback for a team that's going to the Superbowl, and no Jack Dawson waiting at the top of the grand staircase of the Titanic.
Posted by Jeffrey Wells on October 22, 2009 at 2:55 PM
comment #1
Carl Kolchak
says ...
....and do bad dogs go to dog hell?
Posted by Carl Kolchak
at October 22, 2009 3:22 PM
comment #2
Mark
says ...
The question is not whether we share heaven with giraffes. It's whether we share heaven with cavemen, many of which have nothing to add to the conversation.
I'm beginning to think that heaven is a lot like facebook. Infinite can join, though you have personal control about your exposure to others.
Posted by Mark
at October 22, 2009 3:25 PM
comment #3
Gabriel
says ...
God damn, I love HE.
Posted by Gabriel
at October 22, 2009 3:50 PM
comment #4
Eloi Manning
says ...
I don't think everyone's heaven is the same. You make your own, like the girl in the Lovely Bones. I mean, a lot of people would hope they'd go up to heaven and get to have sex with Hollywood stars from throughout history. But Marilyn Monroe doesn't want to sit up there in heaven and have to smash a load of weird men just because it was their lifelong dream. So she has her own heaven, and God sends fake Marilyn Monroes to everyone else's heaven.
And stuff.
Posted by Eloi Manning
at October 22, 2009 3:57 PM
comment #5
Sabina E
says ...
Do good dogs get reincarnated... as human beings?!?!
oh, so many questions to ask...!
For the record, I don't believe in the Biblical concept of Heaven and Hell. I think Eloi Manning said it the best-- I don't think its the same for everyone.
I do believe in the idea of life after death, including reincarnation... and the truth is, fuck Heaven. Heaven sounds so goddamned boring. I'd rather be a ghost and be busy terrorizing young kids in the back alley of an old theatre. Now that's fun.
Posted by Sabina E
at October 22, 2009 4:04 PM
comment #6
Rob Ross
says ...
It's funny that you go down this path tonight, Jeff. I've written a screenplay that has this exact debate [albeit briefer] in a symposium scene between religious and science scholars.
The script goes on to provide a simple, yet intriguing way to [actually] cheat death through reincarnation and formulates the Jesus was the first human to figure out this trick to immortality. Thus, Jesus was a special man, but there is no Heaven, no hell and no God.
Think Da Vinci Code meets the Matrix meets tv's 24. My [small-time Toronto] agent is trying to get anyone and everyone to give it a read.
Posted by Rob Ross
at October 22, 2009 5:03 PM
comment #7
QualityGibberish
says ...
Damn straight, Eloi. I could even go for a fake Marilyn right now!
As the Buddhists note, the afterdeath is as temporary as the beforedeath. It's all a matter of reaping what you sow. So heaven is not really heaven, but a limited state of coming to greater karmic balance (to be as miserable as you have caused misery, and as happy as you have caused happiness). But because even experiences of that sort are temporary/temporal, bound by time, suffering is involved even there. And the upshot is, this is the false existence. Real existence is transcendent.
Posted by QualityGibberish
at October 22, 2009 5:25 PM
comment #8
SolarTheSign
says ...
I believe in neither heaven nor hell, but in a movie of ypur life that screens before your eyes as you die, and accompanies you into the everlasting darkness of eternity with whatever impression it makes upon your soul. Angels are our Ushers and God is the Projectionist. The choices we make in life are ones of stories worth telling -- of what and whom we choose to love, of integrity of character, heroic quests, and resilience in the face of adversity. The ant, the giraffe, the shark and the microbe all have their roles to play. The happiest afterlives belong to people who are the auteurs of their own time on Earth, and there is no worse fate than getting stuck forever in someone else's bad movie.
Posted by SolarTheSign
at October 22, 2009 5:35 PM
comment #9
CitizenKanedforChewingGum
says ...
"I'd rather be a ghost and be busy terrorizing young kids in the back alley of an old theatre."
DBTP, you've been terrorizing all of us on these here back alleys of HE for years now.
I'm skeered. ;-)
Posted by CitizenKanedforChewingGum
at October 22, 2009 5:46 PM
comment #10
arturobandini2
says ...
Mark, if heaven is like Facebook in that there are relentless Farmville and Mafia Wars updates, I think I'd rather rot in limbo with Mimi Rogers.
As a kid, I saw Katharine Hepburn tell Cavett or Walters that when we die, we just go to sleep -- and that's it. No afterlife. That always seemed the most logical postulate to me, but I admit there's something comforting in the thought that assholes will get theirs in eternity.
Posted by arturobandini2
at October 22, 2009 6:51 PM
comment #11
George Prager
says ...
A neocon tells Ron Reagan: 'Your Father Would Be Ashamed Of You'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMOBQZwDMAE
God, I hate these motherfuckers.
Posted by George Prager
at October 22, 2009 7:09 PM
comment #12
Mgmax, le Corbeau
says ...
Eloi Manning's comment reminded me of Mark Twain's wonderful Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven, in which he deals with the practical problems of eternity, like parents with children older than they are; some preacher back then had said that the first thing he was going to do in Heaven was give Moses a big hug, and so Twain explains how if everyone who wanted to give Moses a hug was allowed to, Moses would be worn to a nub in no time, and so there are naturally exclusive parts of Heaven for your celebrities. And thus, Heaven soon becomes Studio 54 or a country club...
Posted by Mgmax, le Corbeau
at October 22, 2009 7:10 PM
comment #13
DarthCorleone
says ...
But if my idea of heaven is to have complete comprehension of the way that heaven works AND to have infinite sex with the original, real Marilyn Monroe as opposed to a copy, how could I and those people who have similar heavenly desires all be fulfilled? Answer: we can't. Any ideas of "heaven" tied to our concepts of satisfaction in the material world don't hold up under scrutiny. (I suppose if we have infinite parallel universes that we could all have a "real" Marilyn Monroe, but as Eloi states above, wouldn't each Marilyn rather be doing something else?)
That all said, even though I doubt it will happen, I hope to frolic with my dog again in the afterlife.
Posted by DarthCorleone
at October 22, 2009 11:20 PM
comment #14
Rich S.
says ...
How does that old joke go? Guy is being given a tour of Hell and he's shown a room where Marilyn Monroe is giving Hitler head. Guy asks, "How in the world is Hitler being punished?" Devil answers, "He's not; she is."
Posted by Rich S.
at October 23, 2009 4:27 AM
comment #15
Floyd Thursby
says ...
Put me down for a fake Julie Christie.
Posted by Floyd Thursby
at October 23, 2009 5:03 AM
comment #16
Eloi Manning
says ...
For children, heaven will be a bit like the part of Jurassic Park where Tim and Lex stumble across a vast buffet of desserts.
There's also the issue of family members that assume they'll be reunited in heaven, even if they didn't like each other. For example a husband who loved his wife, but beat her throughout their marriage. He'll want to see her again in heaven, but she might have been waiting all this time to be separated from him. So again, a fake wife is needed to be inserted into this man's heaven, while she can have a heaven of her own without him.
It'll be like that last scene in A.I. where the robots recreate David's mother so he can finish off his life happily. I bet we'll all find out God is just a robot anyway from some higher civilization. Who knows. It's fun to speculate though.
Posted by Eloi Manning
at October 23, 2009 6:21 AM
comment #17
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at April 24, 2011 11:43 PM