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Does hell exist? I’ll report, you decide . . .

26 Apr

Recently various television news outlets discussed the existence of hell, noting that if heaven exists but hell does not, then everyone that dies must go to heaven. I submit that if a person believes in heaven, then that person must believe in hell. One cannot exist without the other. Heaven exists in the minds and beliefs of people, and hell exists in their minds and beliefs just as surely as does heaven. I am pleased with the way heaven is presented but I really dislike the current description of hell, and I believe I have a more acceptable vision of hell—if it exists!

Everything in our universe and everything outside our universe has its opposite. One cannot exist without the other. Form an image of a mountain in your thoughts, and you’ll find that a valley is included in the image. No mountain can exist, either in reality or in our thoughts, without the existence of a valley. Mountains and valleys must coexist if either is to exist, and while their existence can be verified, it cannot be falsified, and it is at this point their existence diverges from the discussion of whether heaven or hell exists.

I submit that heaven and hell also must coexist or not exist at all. We can cling to our belief that one or the other or both exist, but we can never know—we can only believe. True knowledge is reserved to those for whom life as we know it has ended, and they now exist in another world, either in heaven or hell if either exists. Their existence can neither be verified nor falsified by anyone living. Their existence depends on our beliefs, whether those beliefs are derived from the Scriptures or from our lifetime of living and observing humanity.

Just for discussion, let’s suppose that heaven is exactly as described in the Scriptures and that hell is not as described. Perhaps hell does not exist. Perhaps those not entitled to spend eternity in heaven do not go to hell when they die. Let’s suppose that the wicked have already been judged when they die—prejudged, so to speak—and they simply do not go anywhere. Their spirits do not go to heaven when they die—their spirit, their souls, that which gave them life simply cease to exist, and perhaps that is the hell foretold in the scriptures.

Let’s suppose that the spirit that exists in those of us who have been judged unacceptable in heaven dies when the body dies and remains dead through eternity. Our being barred from heaven therefore is our punishment for living our lives in such a manner that we did not qualify for heaven. Of course those of us that do not make the grade will never know that we failed, but we will have been spared an eternity doing the devil’s bidding while enveloped in flames and forced to shovel coal to keep the fires burning. Bummer!

Thus we have postulated a heaven and its antithesis, hell, without the necessity of describing hell as fire and brimstone ruled by a red devil with horns and a pitchfork tail. If the truth be known, had it not been for volcanic eruptions the ancients would never have developed the idea of hell, then invented the devil and located his kingdom at the center of the earth.

In all of recorded history only one person has returned to the earth after death, and the truth of that record resides in us as individuals. We can neither verify nor falsify that story of life after death, and can never know the truth of that return until we draw our final breath—until then we can only believe and hold to that belief in the hopes that heaven does exist and that our beliefs and our actions in this life will qualify us to spend eternity in heaven—not an easy task, that! And the beauty of my hypothesis is that even if we are denied entry into heaven, we will never know that we were denied because we would spend eternity in the nothingness of hell.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Postscript: This final image is my self-portrait from some five months ago, but as time has passed my anger has faded to the point that I no longer try to place blame on anyone or anything. I no longer fault God for not giving her doctors the power to lengthen her life, and I no longer curse the devil for the disease that took my wife away from me—even after 58 years of marriage I wanted more—I wanted our marriage to never end. If you like, you can click here for a posting that came from my heart and from the depths of my soul.

 
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Posted by on April 26, 2011 in death, Family, funeral, heaven, television, weddings

 

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Food for thought: When it’s time to pay the bill . . .

10 Dec

Food for thought: When it’s time to pay the bill . . .

The following obituary appeared in the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph of Sept. 16, 1958:

A great poet died last week in Lancieux, France at the age of 84. He was not a poet’s poet. Fancy-Dan dilettantes will dispute the description “great.” He was a people’s poet. To the people he was great. They understood him and knew that any verse carrying the by-line of Robert W. Service would be a lilting thing, clear, clean and power-packed, beating out a story with a dramatic intensity that made the nerves tingle. And he was no poor garret-type poet either. His stuff made money hand over fist. One piece alone, The Shooting of Dan McGrew, rolled up half a million dollars for him. He lived it up well and also gave a great deal to help others. “The only society I like,” he once said, “is that which is rough and tough—and the tougher the better. That’s where you get down to bedrock and meet human people.” He found that kind of society in the Yukon gold rush, and he immortalized it.

I recently spent considerable time on the web, absorbed in the poetry of Robert W. Service. Click here for that site. On its surface, his poetry is just as rough and tough as the society he professed to love, the society he found in the Yukon gold rush. However, if one chooses to look below the surface of his writings, a moving current of his belief in the Deity and of life after death will appear. That current is apparent and can be found in the final three lines of his epic poem, The Reckoning. Click here for more works by Robert W. Service.

The Reckoning

It’s fine to have a blow-out in a fancy restaurant,
With terrapin and canvas-back and all the wine you want;
To enjoy the flowers and music, watch the pretty women pass;
Smoke a choice cigar, and sip the wealthy water in your glass.
It’s bully in a high-toned joint to eat and drink your fill,
But it’s quite another matter when you
Pay the bill.

It’s great to go out every night on fun or pleasure bent;
To wear your glad rags always and to never save a cent;
To drift along regardless, have a good time every trip;
To hit the high spots sometimes, and to let your chances slip;
To know you’re acting foolish, yet to go on fooling still,
Till Nature calls a show-down, and you
Pay the bill.

Time has got a little bill—get wise while yet you may,
For the debit side’s increasing in a most alarming way;
The things you had no right to do, the things you should have done,
They’re all put down; it’s up to you to pay for every one.
So eat, drink and be merry, have a good time if you will,
But God help you when the time comes, and you
Foot the bill.

I hope, and I would like to believe, that if I pay my bills as I go through life—pay them conscientiously on time and in full right up to the time I depart this realm for another—I will arrive with the maximum score possible to be considered for entry into heaven, with no unpaid bills, a credit score over the top and an impressive record of doing unto others as I would have them do unto me, a record of shunning the bad and embracing the good (the image at right is a self-portrait, taken at some time in the future).

In reference to the line in The Reckoning that reads, The things you had no right to do, the things you should have done, I am well aware of the things that I’ve done that I had no right to do, and of the things I did not do that I should have done. Armed with that knowledge, in the time I have left in this realm I will strive mightily—nay, desperately—to do none of the things I’ve done that I had no right to do, and to do all of the things I should have done and did not do.

Got it?

And just one more thought:

I am brazen enough to speculate that some, perhaps many—oh, let’s face it—all of us, not only those that may stumble upon this post—all of us would profit in the long run by establishing and adhering to the plan I’ve outlined above. At the very least it wouldn’t hurt to try, and even if we fail we would perhaps earn points for making the effort—perhaps, and again perhaps not.

That’s my story and I’m sticking  to it!

 
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Posted by on December 10, 2010 in death, Family, friends, funeral, Humor, poetry

 

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Delphiniums and Al Gore . . .

22 Apr

Hey, since you’re already on my site, why not click here to check out my About the King of Texas? As I promised when I began blogging in March of 2009, I have expanded it, and I welcome comments on that expansion. And if you’ll click here, you’ll find lots of stuff about me that you really wanted to know but were afraid to ask.

Now on to this posting featuring a purple delphinium and Al Gore:

Earlier this year one of my three princesses, the one that lives, loves and works in Virginia, posted a gorgeous image of a purple delphinium to her Word Press blog. The photo was so beautiful and I liked it so much that I spent a goodly amount of time composing a comment to express my liking, and I used the comment to express my opinion on a certain figure that looms large in our political scene, so large that at times it raises my ire and restricts my view. I’m unsure why the delphinium directed my thoughts to global warming—perhaps I felt that if global warming is a reality, there may be no purple delphiniums in our future.

Click here to view a delightful delphinium with a plethora of pulchritudinous purple petals (I really love alliteration!)  http://cindydyer.wordpress.com/2010/02/26/fridays-eye-candy/#comments.

With full realization that one’s memory tends to wane as one ages, I do not believe my daughter has read my comment, so I am making it a separate posting on my blog. I’m bringing it out of the shadows of comments and into the bright light of its own posting. My humble opinion is that my comment deserves wider dissemination, and my ego requires it—nay, demands it!

Here is my original comment on the purple delphinium, and I welcome comments on my comment:

Your photographic representation of a purple delphinium finds me and leaves me at a loss for words adequate enough to praise its beauty. I can only say that it is NOT disgusting, grotesque, hideous, homely, offensive, plain, repulsive, ugly or unattractive.

As an afterthought, I suppose I could say that it is admirable, alluring, angelic, appealing, beauteous, bewitching, charming, classy, comely, cute, dazzling, delicate, delightful, divine, elegant, enticing, excellent, exquisite, fair, fascinating, fine, foxy, good-looking, gorgeous, graceful, grand, handsome, ideal, lovely, magnificent, marvelous, nice, pleasing, pretty, pulchritudinous, radiant, ravishing, refined, resplendent, shapely, sightly, splendid, statuesque, stunning, sublime, superb, symmetrical, taking, well-formed, and wonderful, so I will say it—in fact, I just said it.

As you well know, I face the East every morning and bow in homage to a giant, one that resides in the East—no, not the sun. I bow to a giant that is normally quite garrulous, a towering presence in all our media sources, but for some strange reason has fallen silent in recent weeks, a silence coincidental, perhaps, to the nation’s recent record snowfalls. Be that as it may, while bowing I repeatedly chant, “Al, baby, you’da most!”

My humble bow to that giant and my paying homage to Him (note the capital H) is in recognition of the fact that He is a giant that, for various actions ranging from beneficial to nefarious with all impinging on our society, will remain a giant unless discredited, and will be firmly ensconced in future annals of American history.

That giant is Al Gore, of course, the One (note the capital O) that foretold the extinction of our planet due to global warming caused by mankind, and for that prescience, that foresight, that knowledge of things before they exist or happen, had a Hollywood Oscar and a Nobel Peace Prize bestowed on Him.

Let’s face it—in his prophecies, Al Gore rivals Nicodemus!

In the interests of full disclosure, I must admit that I am deeply indebted to Al Gore for his invention of the internet—were it not for that prodigious discovery, I would really be at a loss for words—my comments on your blog postings would be reduced to words and phrases such as oh boy, great, nice, wow, okay, right on, you go girl, keep it up, make it happen, give us more, etc., etc., etc.

And also in the interests of full disclosure, I must reveal to your visitors from across the world that my compensation from you is based on the word counts of my comments praising your work, and varies in direct proportion to the number of words—fewer words less money, more words more money.

“N’uff said, or is that more than enough? Can you really afford me? Have your people call my people to discuss different terms of compensation.

I know, I know—I have far too much time on my hands!

 
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Posted by on April 22, 2010 in Uncategorized

 

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