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Who Wants American Evangelical Heaven?

From John Pavlovitz:

I’m going to hell.

At least this is what American Evangelicals often like to tell me.

Apparently though, I’m not alone.

According to them I’m in very good company, as a vast portion of the planet will be eventually be joining me in the corporate weeping and the gnashing of our collective teeth—along with the billions of others, whose incessant torment is already currently in progress.

And sure, on some days the thought of such eternal damnation does seems like more than a bit of a bummer, and I find myself struggling not to let it ruin beautiful afternoons at the park, quiet moments with my kids, and joyous dinners with friends.

The idea of not going to Heaven certainly tends to cast a pall over things at times: movies, vacations, kickboxing classes.

However, the more I begin to visualize the actual Heaven these folks are supposedly excluding me from, the less and less worrisome the prospect becomes:

Apparently Heaven is going to be strictly America First.

Only English will be spoken in Heaven. Everyone else will just have to adjust.

It’s also going to be very, very, very white; with caucasian dudes (like God and Jesus) running the show and making the rules. The ladies will be taking care of the meals and the kids and whatnot.

There will of course, be no Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Wiccans, Unitarians, Agnostics, Atheists, backsliders, heretics, doubters, sinners, or Democrats there.

(There may be a few Mainline Protestants, if they manage to slip through security.)

In American Evangelical Heaven, there will be no gays or lesbians; no transgender people, no bisexual folks, no non-binary or gender fluid individuals—or anyone aiding and abetting them by actually respecting and loving them here on earth.

Also from what I’m able to gather by the brimstone prognosticators here who are certain of their inclusion, American Evangelical heaven will be filled with people who:

• deny others healthcare
• withhold charity from the poor
• politically support predators
• willfully destroy the environment
• fiercely guard their borders
• contest the value of black lives
• fear immigrants, refugees, and people with brown skin

Of course, these will not be issues in Heaven, since there will be no hunger or thirst, no suffering or pain, no sadness or grief. In other words—there will be no one there to bother them with any actual need requiring their compassion, like there were here on earth.

In American Evangelical Heaven, there will be no beggars or poor to be a drain on society Everyone there will have pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps. (Well, actually they’ll have all received unmerited mercy and grace they could never deserve—but why quibble over technicalities.)

I’ve been a Christian for most of my life, and I’ve seen hell used as a way of modifying behavior and controlling people by preying upon their greatest fears. I’ve seen it wielded like a weapon in the hands of people who don’t seem all that loving or merciful (or fun to be around.)

I’ve seen Heaven turned into a gated community of straight white, politically partisan American people—where diversity really won’t be represented and where difference will be turned away at the door.

It’s evolved into a fortified bunker of nationalism, homophobia, misogyny, and bigotry.

The more the image of these people’s Heaven becomes, the less and less trepidation I have of my soul’s resting place somewhere outside of it.

Receiving their damnation actually begins to feel like dodging a bullet.

I may be condemned to suffer all manner of unimaginable horrors, but I won’t have to suffer their hateful, exclusionary, angry religion, or to live surrounded by people who seem so joyful at the thought of other’s damnation and so callous toward such a vast swath of humanity supposedly made in the image of God.

If Heaven is filled with only American Evangelicals—I’ll pass.

Hell seems like a much more beautiful place.

Shorter version? “Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.” ~ Mark Twain

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Shower Thoughts

When people talk about time-traveling into the past, they worry about radically changing the present by doing something small, but rarely does anyone in the present think that they can radically change the future in the same way.

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Shower Thoughts

Small dogs who aren’t big enough to look out of the car windows must think that it’s a magic teleportation device. You go in, it shakes and then you’re at a new place.

I was thinking this the other day while driving the doggies to and from their spa day…

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Quote of the Day

There comes a day when you realize turning the page is the best feeling in the world, because you realize there’s so much more to the book than the page you were stuck on.” ~ Zayn Malik

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Shower Thoughts

Attending church is like going to one big book club meeting where everyone listens to someone try and interpret what the author really meant.

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I’ve Been Thrown Out Of Classier Joints Than This!

I’ve been a very naughty boy…apparently for telling a snowflake gun nut to shove his penis-extender up his ass.

If it weren’t for the fact that so many things are tied to my Twitter login (not an insurmountable impediment, but a pain in the ass to untangle) this might be the impetus I need to close my account—especially since these days I can only stand to be there for two to three minutes at a time at most before I’m overwhelmed by the tide of stupidity.

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So Disappointing

I wanted to like this. I really did. But I’m now 9 episodes into the 10-episode first season, and already I’ve fast forwarded through the majority of two of them.

[Spoilers Ahead]

This is as much the Lost in Space of my childhood as was the also much-anticipated but ultimately disappointing 1998 film of the same name. That at least had the advantage of Matt LeBlanc pulling off a rather studly Major Don West.

In this reboot, we don’t even have that advantage. The beloved robot isn’t ours. It’s an alien artificial intelligence who crashed on the same alien planet as the Robinsons—after attacking the transport vessel that originally housed the Robinsons and multiple Jupiter spacecraft and colonists.

Dr. Smith is a woman. I have no problem with changing the gender of the main antagonist and lord knows Parker Posey is a wonderful actress, but in this iteration, she’s not a saboteur for some unspecified superpower or even the bumbling foil of the robot that the doctor morphed into as the original series progressed. She’s simply a pure sociopath and serial liar, interested only in her own preservation and without an ounce of empathy or possessing any redeeming qualities whatsoever. (Remind you of anyone in the news?)

Her name isn’t even Smith—nor is she a doctor. She’s an identity thief, who stole the ID of the real Dr. Smith (briefly portrayed by and providing a short nod to the original series by Billy Mumy).

While the truly ridiculous (and memorable) aliens and monsters didn’t really start appearing in the original Lost in Space until the latter half of the first season, we’ve seen nothing alien—save the robot itself and some of the native fauna of the planet—in this reboot. Where is the giant cyclops? Mr. Nobody? The Keeper? Hell, where is the bloop?  (“Debbie” is a chicken—a chicken—owned by Don West.)

Don West is not a major, or even a pilot. He’s a maintenance tech who escaped the transport vessel—along with “Dr. Smith”—under less-than-above-board circumstances. He’s a smuggler and a barely-likeable soundrel who, despite the desperate circumstances they find themselves in, seems only interested in enriching himself.) Unlike Dr. Smith however, he is at least proving his worth to the colonists.

Yes, colonists with an “s.” Multiple colonists. Multiple Jupiters. Unlike the original series with a single family on their own, this LIS is like a big community cookout. Drama! Intrigue! Adolescent angst! Interpersonal bullshit!

And then there’s the family drama. After six—or was it seven?—episodes of John (who isn’t exactly the brightest bulb in the box) and Maureen Robinson barely tolerating each other (they apparently were on the verge of divorce before they decided to reunite for the children in order to get them off the dying planet Earth) they find themselves stuck together on the sinking chariot in a tar pit. They apparently worked out their differences and made up after escaping (I don’t know this for sure; it was one of the episodes I ended up fast-forwarding through, but they were all kissy-face thereafter).

I have one episode left to watch. Episode 9 ended up with the robot being reassembled after being ordered to step off a cliff by young Will—who was the only colonist who had control of the machine—and now under the control of “Dr. Smith” or whatever her real name is…

Anyhow, IMHO, this reboot has none of the fun—despite an occasional nod in the general direction of (and the end credits music from) the original series. It’s all gritty life drama now in a tiring multiple-disaster-of-the-week format.

Will I finish watching? Yeah, with only one episode left at this point I pretty much have to but there’s no urgency to do so. I fully expect Will to regain control of the robot and the colonists will somehow manage to get enough fuel made to get off the planet before it’s sent hurdling too close to its star by a black hole also orbiting the same star (yeah, I know). The first season will close out with all the colonists escaping—but the Jupiter 2 (with the robot, Don West, and “Doctor Smith” on board) will be sucked into the black hole and miraculously survive, (or will spun out by the black hole’s gravity at trans-relativistic speed) and emerge in an even more distant part of the universe, this time on their own for real.

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