Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Quazy Quistian Question # 1

There’s just no nice way to say this. Even if there were, I probably wouldn’t use it, because, truthfully? I was born not only without the “god” gene, but also unencumbered by the “tact” gene.

Religion is dumb. That’s why it’s so much fun for us atheists to think up hard Questions for Christians. But I don’t understand why we spend so much time challenging believers about seemingly serious issues like, say, the Ontological Argument or the Euthyphro Dilemma. I’ve got a collection basket full of inane queries that need answering.

So I’m driving through town this morning, and an attractive woman in a red SUV whooshes past me in the right lane and cuts me off. I was already going a few miles per hour over the speed limit (well, in my book, twenty is “a few”). But this woman was clearly on some kind of mission.

Naturally, I leaned on the horn. I did this before I saw her two bumper stickers. On the left: Rejoice in the Lord. On the right: Honk if you’re not wearing any underwear.

Now, it so happened that I wasn’t wearing any underwear at the time. Sometimes, I’m just too lazy or too tired to dig through my highboy to find something to cover up my lowboys. But why my poor scrambled huevos should have been of any interest to a woman whose sunny side up was at least twenty-five years fresher than mine, was beyond me. Only her mysterious pal in the sky could know. When we were stopped at a red light on the next corner, she leaned her head and arm out the window, turned around to face me, and gave me what I at first thought was the finger. But it wasn’t. It was a thumbs-up.

I’d earned the approval of a beautiful Jesus-jumping stranger going commando just by sharing what she thought was a trivial confidence: Hey, I left my tighty-whities in my bottom drawer at home. And what aren’t you wearing, Sweetheart?

My angry impulse had resulted in a sweet, suggestive, smile — which I, of course, returned. And I wondered, “How embarrassed is she gonna be when the rapture comes and all of us forsaken sinners are left admiring her bare behind as it ascends to heaven?”

Anyway, seeing my response, she pointed toward the back of her car. I thought maybe I had a flat tire, or there was a dead animal in the road between us. I rolled down my window, leaned my head out, and shouted the most intelligent thing I could think of to say under the circumstances: “What? What?”

The woman turned almost completely around toward me, leaned over the back of her seat, placed her palms and fingertips together in the praying position, and looked up at the interior roof of her car. It’s impossible to know for sure what or who was up there, but a miracle happened. The light changed. I don’t know if that’s what she was praying for, but I saw it with my own eyes. When the impatient elderly couple in the Honda behind me let off a couple of feeble annoyed beeps, the woman must have thought the sounds were coming from me again.

As she raced away, the woman stuck another thumbs-up out the window. I half-hoped that she’d flash me at the next stoplight. But I did worry that she’d misinterpret my reponse to think I was trying to tell her “Christ is risen.” In any case, it never came up, because she was well out of sight within a minute.

This little story leads me to my very first series of inane queries: What do the pious think will happen to their clothing when they die? Do they imagine that they’re going to an eternal ectoplasmic nudist camp? Or do they anticipate an everlasting fancy-dress ball? Perhaps they think they’ll all be outfitted in identical choir robes without anything underneath. Sure, wise guys can dismiss this problem: Nobody is stupid enough to think that underwear’s gonna be an issue in the afterlife. But if religious people truly believe that each soul is unique, then any one of them, once dead, oughta be able to recognize others and distinguish between them.

OK, how? What exactly will those spirits be staring at?

I’ll tell you this: the attractive woman in the SUV will never trouble her pretty empty head about the Argument from Design. Where she’s going, design, at least of undergarments, won’t be a concern. There’s no way that she’s putting on a push-up bra any time during her vacation in infinity. The only question she’ll need to answer will be: Is it possible to honk when there are no cars around?

Quazy Quistian Question # 1:
Will souls need clothes in heaven? Explain your response.

15 comments:

tina FCD said...

Plain and simple, no. Only because there is no heaven. :)
And if there was a heaven, who wants to see all those yucky bodies? I guess they wear sheets given to them by the clothing police?

Spanish Inquisitor said...

As an atheist, with nudist inclinations, I respectfully disagree with Tina (unless she sends me a picture to change my mind) MY heaven would be naked. It only makes sense. Heaven will be the appropriate temperature, not too warm, not too cool, just right.

Our Victorian shame will be non-existent. See, if we make it to heaven, the whole original sin, shame at being unclothed, bullshit that was imposed on us by reason of Eve's bite of the apple, will be shed, along with our clothes.

Also, we'll be in our ideal form, neither too fat nor too skinny, with unblemished skin. As an added bonus, no unsightly pubic hair. Who needs it? Ever see any pubic hair on all those Christian nudes? Ok, with a few exceptions (David), most of them have discovered waxing. The point is, everyone will be pleasant to look at, so why have clothing?

PhillyChief said...

This is quite a complicated question. Yes, the climate should be perfect for going nude, but would anyone want to see you nude? Your nudity, unfortunately, may just turn someone else's heaven into hell.

Now maybe you say if it's heaven, we'll all be fit and awesome looking. Fine, but our awesome sure isn't the same awesome of a few generations ago, let alone a couple of millenia ago. Those goat herders may look at a naked Rebecca Romijn and think that poor girl needs to eat, sadly doesn't have good child bearing hips and is disturbingly smooth and hairless.

Also, if you've been a fat slob all your life and now you're all fit and handsome, how would anyone find you in heaven? You'd be unrecognizable. Same with you trying to find friends and family. And what about your mom or grandmom? How weird would it be to see them young and hot? Oh, and naked?

No, you'd probably have to wear some celestial mu-mu, but of course what kind of heaven would that be if you want to be naked? That's not utopia for you. Also, what kind of heaven would prevent me from seeing Rebecca Romijn naked? No heaven I want to be a part of.

DaVinci said...

Well if we know our bibles we should be able to give a fairly accurate answer to this. Adam and Eve were naked and once they sinned God sacrificed an animal to clothe them. This not only started the bloody propitiation to cover sin, it also gave a rosy future to many magazines and [E!] programs. So by this reasoning (?), if a person makes it into heaven, they are without sin and no longer in need of a covering. Therefore I say they are naked. I don’t think it will be quite as gross as we all think it should be based on those we know here on earth, because it is said that we will have glorified bodies, and seeing there is no giving and taking in marriage, I see no need for sex organs. So in essence we will all be breast-less Barbie and Ken dolls once there.

PhillyChief said...

If you magically become without sin once in heaven, then you're not the same person, are you? Your personality, what truly is you, would be altered so in a sense, there is no eternal life because you will be gone. What's left is some lobotomized thing, like Randall at the end of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. That's something this Chief, like the Chief in the story, would not hesitate to escape from. Thankfully heaven is fictional, like the classic novel (and hell of a movie) I'm referring to. Even in the novel, you get to keep your genitalia. Yikes! Christian heaven must suck. Muslims at least get virgins and sex, although how good that sex would be is questionable (I share Conan's objection to virgins in favor of experienced women - and by Conan I mean the barbarian, not O'Brien), but it's still sex, which has to trump lobotomized Barbie and Ken eternity in the magical playhouse.

John Evo said...

Exterminator opened the post with:

"truthfully? I was born not only without the “god” gene, but also unencumbered by the “tact” gene."

I'm sure you meant to say: truthfully? I was born not only without the "tact" gene, but also unencumbered by the "god" gene.

OK, so I AM being a Verb Nazi!

Also, "Now, it so happened that I wasn’t wearing any underwear at the time. Sometimes, I’m just too lazy or too tired to dig through my highboy to find something to cover up my lowboys."

Without revealing any personal secrets, let's just say that if the weather is warm, I might not need to be lazy to leave off the under garments. I believe in FREEDOM in all forms, including free-balling!

Reason's Whore said...

You know what they say: Nunquam ubi sub ubi.

Quazy Questions - I love it! I hope you'll keep them coming.

I only bother to ask questions at all because I know those hard questions are what actually crack the god belief in many cases. It's just a matter of hitting the right one at the right time. SUV lady will never think analytically about any of it, that's for sure. She's happy with her imaginary afterlife fantasies.

John Evo said...

I thought immediately about your Christian Qustions, Slut. I think it's a worthy enterprise. You seem to receive a decent amount of feedback from Christians, so at least you have some of them thinking. We can't change people; we can participate in the change.

Unknown said...

Well, when I was being raised as a Christian I was taught that there was no sex (that is gender) in heaven because eternal beings have no need to reproduce. I have no idea if this is Biblical, but I think I remember a reference in the Bible to angels or heavenly spirits being neither male nor female. I haven't thought about it in years and my memory of the discussions are vague.

And I'm sure that there are Christians that would give you the rather gag-inducing answer along the lines of, "We'll be clothed in the glory of God." I always got the impression that it wouldn't matter because those people that went to heaven would be pure in mind and spirit, unable to sin since they would no longer have freewill (having made the ultimate choice). But again, that could have been my parents or church's own personal beliefs and not based on Biblical interpretations.

To me the whole concept is pretty terrifying.

JP said...

Love it. Thanks for sharing this story, I was nearly crying picturing myself in the situation. Its a shame you did not have a "WOW" sticker on the back of your car...

Come to think of it, my previous christian life, I have never once thought of the question you imposed. I am with davinci on this one. Great biblical answer!

John Evo said...

OG said: "Well, when I was being raised as a Christian I was taught that there was no sex (that is gender) in heaven because eternal beings have no need to reproduce. I have no idea if this is Biblical, but I think I remember a reference in the Bible to angels or heavenly spirits being neither male nor female."

Were your parents in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints? Because my mother was, and that seems pretty close to how they taught it.

And if you try to turn fantasy on it's head and apply reason to it, how could it be otherwise? Once you die - you don't die? OK... You just leave your body and head off to heaven or hell or wherever. We KNOW your body is still with us. We know we have no contact with "you", so it can only be an ethereal spirit that remains. Whatever THAT IS, it would not seem to be possible to have body parts (unfortunately including the key ones). So "spirit" would really be a state of continuing consciousness, but nothing physical.

Then again...

Isn't there some reference in the bible to the fact that "all will be restored", including a perfected form of the body? Won't all the dead saints rise up from the grave? Isn't it possible that our lack of understanding about spirits is too deep to comprehend? Might not death (in this body) be an immediate reawakening in a different dimension in an identical body? If so, might it be wearing identical clothes?

Excuse me... I'm going to get baptized right now. If all of these are possible, then surely one of them (or a variant) must be TRUE.

Am I not logical?

JP said...

john evo-mid,

Make sure that your baptism is by immersion only because we know that is the only valid way!

John Evo said...

Well I certainly want to do it the official way. How embarrassed would I be if they keep me out of heaven because I do the baptism incorrectly?

The Exterminator said...

Well, you people are no damn help whatsoever. I was trying to decide whether I should open a tailor shop or a naturalists' colony when I get to heaven, and I can't get a straight answer.

tina
You said: I guess they wear sheets given to them by the clothing police? But are they Martha Stewart designer sheets or just plain ol' white ones?

SI
You revealed that you're an atheist with nudist inclinations. So you really do believe in nothing, eh?

Philly
You asked: Also, what kind of heaven would prevent me from seeing Rebecca Romijn naked? But what kind of heaven would force Rebecca Romijn to see you naked? Or SI, for that matter.

DaVinci
You point out: it is said that we will have glorified bodies in heaven. If that's true, Philly ought to be satisfied looking at Tammy Faye.

slut
I basically agree with you that SUV lady will never think analytically about any of it, that's for sure. Unless she can find a bumper sticker that says: Honk if you're analyzing something.

ordinary
You said: I think I remember a reference in the Bible to angels or heavenly spirits being neither male nor female. Thanks for that info, because it explains a quote I've never understood. John 11:35, the shortest verse in the entire bible, says only "Jesus wept." Now I know what he was crying about.

John-Evo:
You think: We can't change people; we can participate in the change. I'm not sure that's true. I once tried to participate when Rebecca Romijn was changing, and she screamed and threw me out of the dressing room.

JP:
You wrote: Its a shame you did not have a "WOW" sticker on the back of your car... No, the real shame is that I did have a "WOW" sticker, but I'd glued it on upside-down so it said "MOM."

Babs Gladhand said...

Of course souls will need clothes in heaven. They'd look pretty stupid just walking around with shoes on.

I'm still laughing about your flirtation with the Jesus lady.