The eminent Dr. Richard Redherring passed away this morning after a tragic car accident.
Dr. Redherring distinguished himself in his early twenties by finally putting an end to theistic delusions and doing away with superstitious irrationality. Notable accomplishments include development of the aWave, a low level energy field that disrupted the religious experience in the human brain, air-tight proofs denying the existence of any sort of spiritual realm, and massively successful crusades against theism, mankind’s most harmful strain of mind-virus.
He is survived by his wife, Harriet, 41, and three adopted children, Jean, 7, Claude, 13, and Mike, 15. He was 36.
Richard was confused. Well, confuse may not be the most appropriate word given the context. Vexed with a side of confusion, perhaps. Disappointedly enraged may be another more appropriate phrase. Regardless, he wasn’t prepared or satisfied with his current situation. Being dead, that is. Dead and still hanging around.
Richard had felt that he lived a good, honest, atheistic life. He had done all in his power to rid the world of religious persecution and oppression. Heck, he HAD rid the world of religion. Like an avenging angel, pardon the terminology, he had torn asunder mankind’s greatest ill. So why wasn’t he dead? He should be gone. TKO’d. Ceasing to be.
Instead he was floating around a sunlit field filled to the brim with wildflowers. Really pretty wildflowers at that. The kind of wildflowers he used to pick at his grandmum’s house on cool Sunday afternoons. The bastards.
Through sheer force of will Richard lowered himself to the ground. Floating without means was patently impossible, so he wouldn’t hear of it. Once down, he took closer stock of his surroundings.
Yep, definitely a great, big, apparently unending field. Eerie cloudless blue sky, hazy horizon, aggravating wildflowers-- No matter which direction he turned everything was still very much the same. Closer examination of the wildflowers yielded similar results. They were all very pretty, all practically perfect, but all more or less the same.
“Dandy,” he muttered, and picked an arbitrary direction and started walking. No use standing around like a lump of clay when one should be dead, after all.
Richard walked.
After walking for a little while, Richard walked some more.
Afterwards, Richard continued to walk.
The field and flowers seemed the same no matter where he was. Always perfect, always unending, always as boring as his grandmum‘s old lectures about the great bearded man in the sky.
As can be imagined, this went on for quite some time. Richard had no idea how much time had actually passed, but it felt like a goodly amount. Not long enough to quell his frustration and bewilderment, but long enough to feel goodly. While many men would have shouted their frustration to the heavens, atheism be damned, Richard was never the type to engage in tomfoolery. Or really anything exciting and emotional for that matter.
A lot more time passed and Richard finally snapped. “Oh, bugger, where am I?” he quietly asked himself.
“Heaven” boomed a thunderous reply. "Well, no - I tell a lie. But this is pretty much what Heaven is gonna be like."
Richard jumped and managed to trip over his legs and faceplant into the ground. It didn’t hurt. Pushing himself off the ground he looked around, furtively. Still field. Still flowers. Still nothing. Right, must have been his imagination. He climbed back to his knees and brushed himself off.
Or he would have, had he not come face to face with an enormous figure leaning down to look him in the eye.
“Gyaaaaaaaargh!” he cried, as he stumbled back and fell, once again, without pain. Scrambling back up he turned and ran as fast as possible in the opposite direction. Not daring to glance behind him he kept running as long and as fast as possible…
Which turned out to be quite fast and for a rather long time. He kept running and only stopped when he risked a look and saw the figure was gone, replaced by an unending tide of wildflowers. Curiously, he wasn’t out of breath or tired in the slightest. Nor had he run like that since his college days. He filed it away under “What the hell is going on,” in his mind. He still bent over and clutched his side, forcing himself to breathe hard. Out of spite.
When he deemed that enough breathing had passed to warrant a good and proper physical recovery from such an exertion he lifted his head to look around again.
And once more came face to face with an enormous figure leaning down to look him straight in the eye.
Gyaaaaaaaaa--!” he cried, as he stumbled back and fell once again. Or tried to. No, really, he did his best to make contact with the ground, but it just wasn’t happening. He was floating again and couldn’t do anything about it.
“I can fly, you know,” the figure said, conversationally. Boomingly. Way too loudly.
“Grgh,” Richard replied, graciously.
“And teleport,” it continued.
“Ohgrh?” Richard inquired.
“Quite.”
“Argh.”
“I suppose you’re wondering where you are and why you‘re here,” it stated, still way, way too loudly for conversational English, or whatever dialect of This-Can’t-Be-Happening they were speaking. “Well, you’re a personality downloaded to a computer so your mind could survive after death. You‘re in a computer construct called ‘not-exactly-but-close-to-Heaven.’”
“Really?” Richard asked, shocked, but much more at ease.
“No. You’re dead” the figure boomed.
“Oh,” Richard said, downcast. “I guess that means…?”
“More or less, yes,” came the answer.
“And this is…?”
“Yep.”
“And you are?”
“Oh, well, just call me Hans. Or Hank. Or Hal. Whatever you prefer, I don’t put much stock in names.” Hans/Hank/Hal said. “Or Triple H. I like that, too. Not Stone Cold Steve Austin though.”
“All right, Mr. H, so, ah, I’m dead, right?”
“Right,” Triple H said.
“And this is… something like Heaven?”
“More or less.”
“And you’re god? Er, God. Whatever.”
Triple H let out a great and explosive laugh that rattled Richard’s teeth. “Oh, my no. Not at all. If I was The Big Guy your head would have exploded and we’d be mopping up this plane for years. I’m an underling. A caretaker, if you will.” Triple H pondered this for a moment. “I guess I’m an angel.”
“Right… Right.” Richard said, taking a closer look at him. He certainly fit the profile of an angel. Tall, androgynous, wings, flowing white robe. All that theistic crap. Well, not crap. Ok, that theistic notcrap. Where does an atheist turn when he’s overwhelmed? “So, uh, you get out much?” Richard asked, making conversation.
“Oh, you know, for famines, plagues, slaughtering the unbelievers… I’m always game for those. Great opportunities to catch up with old friends,” Triple H boomed, nonchalantly.
Richard nodded his head for lack of anything else to do.
“Richard, I’m kidding.”
“Right.”
Triple H coughed, unceremoniously, and pulled out a scroll from his robe. “Enough with the pleasantries, I suppose? Right then. Richard M. Redherring of Manchester, England, son of Samuel, son of Arthur, son of Clydesdale, son of the son of the son of the son of, etc etc, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God -- This is you, right?” Triple H stopped to affirm.
“Uh, yes. Quite. Doctor Richard M. Redherring.”
“Yes, yes, of course. Doctor Richard M. Redherring, the man who invented the aWave, put an end to the ‘god delusion’ and finally set humanity on the right track to truth?”
“Uh, hem, haw… Yeah. I suppose.” Richard was doing his very best to be modest. He didn’t want to brag too much to Triple H about how he had disproved the existence of angels and any possible god or afterlife.
“Great! We’re in business, then. The Big Guy has a few questions He wanted me to ask you.” Triple H rolled the scroll back up, tucked it away, and proceeded to sit down on an invisible chair that seemed to float menacingly high above Richard. He pulled out a clipboard and a quill.
“Oh, yes, of course, happy to oblige him. Er, well, Him,” Richard strained out. “Anything I can do to help.” This notcrap was killing him. Again. Or something.
“Okie dokie, first of all, do you believe in God?” boomed the first question in what promised to be the most mind-bashingly fun time of Richard’s life. Notlife. Whatever.
“No. Well, yes. I mean, there is no evidence to say that…” Richard stopped and looked around. “Well, yes, I suppose.”
“Mmmhmm,” Triple H murmured, scribbling in some notes. “Good, good. Did you ever think that He did NOT exist?”
Through Richard’s mind flashed news story after news story covering the advent of the aWave and the speeches he had given as the Hero Atheist after successful crusades against theistic belief. “Well, I suppose there may have been a time… A few times in my life where I happened to… Advocate such beliefs, yes.”
Triple H frowned a little as his quill scratched up and down the clipboard. “I see, I see. And did you happen to pull the rug out from under every belief system on the planet with your invention of the ‘aWave’?”
Richard took some deep breaths and carefully responded “I might have… had something to do with that. I seem to remember this ‘aWave’ you speak of.” 1600 diagrams and 40 prototypes paraded past his vision. Great flashing bulbs and the shaking of hands. Richard Dawkins smiling from ear to ear, pumping his fist up and down. Adoration of the masses.
“Just a small role, I’m sure,” Triple H consoled, the quill moving furiously up and down. This activity went on a few moments longer than before. “During this time in your life, short I’m sure, did it ever occur to you that their might just be, oh I don’t know, some kind of reason… some kind of greater meaning to why so much of humanity was hardwired into believing in God?”
“Well, I mean, there are so many-- I mean, at the time I’m sure I felt that there were just so many beliefs and religions that it must be some kind of general defect… or something. Evolution gone awry.” At evolution Triple H’s eyebrows rose slightly.
“Indeed,” he said, taking very few notes this time. “Right, then, last question. Why are you here?”
The question pushed Richard, already pretty unstable at this point, off balance. “What?” he asked, stupidly.
“Why are you here? Heaven?” Triple H expounded.
“Uhm. I suppose it’s because I led a good, honest life. I was… True to myself and my convictions? Did good where I saw a helping hand was needed. That’s gotta count for something, right?” Richard squirmed in his invisible chair. The angel looked at him levelly.
“You are aware that your invention tore away comfort and security from billions of people worldwide, right?” Triple H asked him, coolly.
“Well, yes, that is, some sacrifices had to be… I mean, all for the sake of truth. Well, empirical evidence. You know, where the compass hand was pointing and…” Richard trailed off in the face of the massive and imposing angel that happened to be sitting with him in an infinite field of flowers while he should be very, very dead.
“So why do you think you’re here?” Triple H asked, again.
“Because God wants me here?” Richard said, frustrated.
“Exactly!” beamed the angel. “Now you’ve got it.”
“Great,” Richard enthused.
Triple H stepped to the ground and started walking. Richard hopped after him, jogging to keep pace with the angel’s great strides.
“H-hey, where are you going?” Richard asked, nervously.
“We’re going to put you back down on Earth, Doctor Richard M. Redherring. It just so happens your aWave generators have met with unexplainable disasters and theistic belief is at an all time high.” He coughed. "God does that sometimes."
“You’re putting me back? But, I’m dead. Aren’t I supposed to be judged? Thrown into a lake of fire? Something?”
The angel stopped. “Well, hey, if that’s what you want--”
“No, no!” Richard placated, “Quite all right. Let’s do what you want to do.”
“Oh. Ok. Good. We’re going to have you get born somewhere in Rome. You’re going to make a great pope.”
Dr. Redherring distinguished himself in his early twenties by finally putting an end to theistic delusions and doing away with superstitious irrationality. Notable accomplishments include development of the aWave, a low level energy field that disrupted the religious experience in the human brain, air-tight proofs denying the existence of any sort of spiritual realm, and massively successful crusades against theism, mankind’s most harmful strain of mind-virus.
He is survived by his wife, Harriet, 41, and three adopted children, Jean, 7, Claude, 13, and Mike, 15. He was 36.
Richard was confused. Well, confuse may not be the most appropriate word given the context. Vexed with a side of confusion, perhaps. Disappointedly enraged may be another more appropriate phrase. Regardless, he wasn’t prepared or satisfied with his current situation. Being dead, that is. Dead and still hanging around.
Richard had felt that he lived a good, honest, atheistic life. He had done all in his power to rid the world of religious persecution and oppression. Heck, he HAD rid the world of religion. Like an avenging angel, pardon the terminology, he had torn asunder mankind’s greatest ill. So why wasn’t he dead? He should be gone. TKO’d. Ceasing to be.
Instead he was floating around a sunlit field filled to the brim with wildflowers. Really pretty wildflowers at that. The kind of wildflowers he used to pick at his grandmum’s house on cool Sunday afternoons. The bastards.
Through sheer force of will Richard lowered himself to the ground. Floating without means was patently impossible, so he wouldn’t hear of it. Once down, he took closer stock of his surroundings.
Yep, definitely a great, big, apparently unending field. Eerie cloudless blue sky, hazy horizon, aggravating wildflowers-- No matter which direction he turned everything was still very much the same. Closer examination of the wildflowers yielded similar results. They were all very pretty, all practically perfect, but all more or less the same.
“Dandy,” he muttered, and picked an arbitrary direction and started walking. No use standing around like a lump of clay when one should be dead, after all.
Richard walked.
After walking for a little while, Richard walked some more.
Afterwards, Richard continued to walk.
The field and flowers seemed the same no matter where he was. Always perfect, always unending, always as boring as his grandmum‘s old lectures about the great bearded man in the sky.
As can be imagined, this went on for quite some time. Richard had no idea how much time had actually passed, but it felt like a goodly amount. Not long enough to quell his frustration and bewilderment, but long enough to feel goodly. While many men would have shouted their frustration to the heavens, atheism be damned, Richard was never the type to engage in tomfoolery. Or really anything exciting and emotional for that matter.
A lot more time passed and Richard finally snapped. “Oh, bugger, where am I?” he quietly asked himself.
“Heaven” boomed a thunderous reply. "Well, no - I tell a lie. But this is pretty much what Heaven is gonna be like."
Richard jumped and managed to trip over his legs and faceplant into the ground. It didn’t hurt. Pushing himself off the ground he looked around, furtively. Still field. Still flowers. Still nothing. Right, must have been his imagination. He climbed back to his knees and brushed himself off.
Or he would have, had he not come face to face with an enormous figure leaning down to look him in the eye.
“Gyaaaaaaaargh!” he cried, as he stumbled back and fell, once again, without pain. Scrambling back up he turned and ran as fast as possible in the opposite direction. Not daring to glance behind him he kept running as long and as fast as possible…
Which turned out to be quite fast and for a rather long time. He kept running and only stopped when he risked a look and saw the figure was gone, replaced by an unending tide of wildflowers. Curiously, he wasn’t out of breath or tired in the slightest. Nor had he run like that since his college days. He filed it away under “What the hell is going on,” in his mind. He still bent over and clutched his side, forcing himself to breathe hard. Out of spite.
When he deemed that enough breathing had passed to warrant a good and proper physical recovery from such an exertion he lifted his head to look around again.
And once more came face to face with an enormous figure leaning down to look him straight in the eye.
Gyaaaaaaaaa--!” he cried, as he stumbled back and fell once again. Or tried to. No, really, he did his best to make contact with the ground, but it just wasn’t happening. He was floating again and couldn’t do anything about it.
“I can fly, you know,” the figure said, conversationally. Boomingly. Way too loudly.
“Grgh,” Richard replied, graciously.
“And teleport,” it continued.
“Ohgrh?” Richard inquired.
“Quite.”
“Argh.”
“I suppose you’re wondering where you are and why you‘re here,” it stated, still way, way too loudly for conversational English, or whatever dialect of This-Can’t-Be-Happening they were speaking. “Well, you’re a personality downloaded to a computer so your mind could survive after death. You‘re in a computer construct called ‘not-exactly-but-close-to-Heaven.’”
“Really?” Richard asked, shocked, but much more at ease.
“No. You’re dead” the figure boomed.
“Oh,” Richard said, downcast. “I guess that means…?”
“More or less, yes,” came the answer.
“And this is…?”
“Yep.”
“And you are?”
“Oh, well, just call me Hans. Or Hank. Or Hal. Whatever you prefer, I don’t put much stock in names.” Hans/Hank/Hal said. “Or Triple H. I like that, too. Not Stone Cold Steve Austin though.”
“All right, Mr. H, so, ah, I’m dead, right?”
“Right,” Triple H said.
“And this is… something like Heaven?”
“More or less.”
“And you’re god? Er, God. Whatever.”
Triple H let out a great and explosive laugh that rattled Richard’s teeth. “Oh, my no. Not at all. If I was The Big Guy your head would have exploded and we’d be mopping up this plane for years. I’m an underling. A caretaker, if you will.” Triple H pondered this for a moment. “I guess I’m an angel.”
“Right… Right.” Richard said, taking a closer look at him. He certainly fit the profile of an angel. Tall, androgynous, wings, flowing white robe. All that theistic crap. Well, not crap. Ok, that theistic notcrap. Where does an atheist turn when he’s overwhelmed? “So, uh, you get out much?” Richard asked, making conversation.
“Oh, you know, for famines, plagues, slaughtering the unbelievers… I’m always game for those. Great opportunities to catch up with old friends,” Triple H boomed, nonchalantly.
Richard nodded his head for lack of anything else to do.
“Richard, I’m kidding.”
“Right.”
Triple H coughed, unceremoniously, and pulled out a scroll from his robe. “Enough with the pleasantries, I suppose? Right then. Richard M. Redherring of Manchester, England, son of Samuel, son of Arthur, son of Clydesdale, son of the son of the son of the son of, etc etc, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God -- This is you, right?” Triple H stopped to affirm.
“Uh, yes. Quite. Doctor Richard M. Redherring.”
“Yes, yes, of course. Doctor Richard M. Redherring, the man who invented the aWave, put an end to the ‘god delusion’ and finally set humanity on the right track to truth?”
“Uh, hem, haw… Yeah. I suppose.” Richard was doing his very best to be modest. He didn’t want to brag too much to Triple H about how he had disproved the existence of angels and any possible god or afterlife.
“Great! We’re in business, then. The Big Guy has a few questions He wanted me to ask you.” Triple H rolled the scroll back up, tucked it away, and proceeded to sit down on an invisible chair that seemed to float menacingly high above Richard. He pulled out a clipboard and a quill.
“Oh, yes, of course, happy to oblige him. Er, well, Him,” Richard strained out. “Anything I can do to help.” This notcrap was killing him. Again. Or something.
“Okie dokie, first of all, do you believe in God?” boomed the first question in what promised to be the most mind-bashingly fun time of Richard’s life. Notlife. Whatever.
“No. Well, yes. I mean, there is no evidence to say that…” Richard stopped and looked around. “Well, yes, I suppose.”
“Mmmhmm,” Triple H murmured, scribbling in some notes. “Good, good. Did you ever think that He did NOT exist?”
Through Richard’s mind flashed news story after news story covering the advent of the aWave and the speeches he had given as the Hero Atheist after successful crusades against theistic belief. “Well, I suppose there may have been a time… A few times in my life where I happened to… Advocate such beliefs, yes.”
Triple H frowned a little as his quill scratched up and down the clipboard. “I see, I see. And did you happen to pull the rug out from under every belief system on the planet with your invention of the ‘aWave’?”
Richard took some deep breaths and carefully responded “I might have… had something to do with that. I seem to remember this ‘aWave’ you speak of.” 1600 diagrams and 40 prototypes paraded past his vision. Great flashing bulbs and the shaking of hands. Richard Dawkins smiling from ear to ear, pumping his fist up and down. Adoration of the masses.
“Just a small role, I’m sure,” Triple H consoled, the quill moving furiously up and down. This activity went on a few moments longer than before. “During this time in your life, short I’m sure, did it ever occur to you that their might just be, oh I don’t know, some kind of reason… some kind of greater meaning to why so much of humanity was hardwired into believing in God?”
“Well, I mean, there are so many-- I mean, at the time I’m sure I felt that there were just so many beliefs and religions that it must be some kind of general defect… or something. Evolution gone awry.” At evolution Triple H’s eyebrows rose slightly.
“Indeed,” he said, taking very few notes this time. “Right, then, last question. Why are you here?”
The question pushed Richard, already pretty unstable at this point, off balance. “What?” he asked, stupidly.
“Why are you here? Heaven?” Triple H expounded.
“Uhm. I suppose it’s because I led a good, honest life. I was… True to myself and my convictions? Did good where I saw a helping hand was needed. That’s gotta count for something, right?” Richard squirmed in his invisible chair. The angel looked at him levelly.
“You are aware that your invention tore away comfort and security from billions of people worldwide, right?” Triple H asked him, coolly.
“Well, yes, that is, some sacrifices had to be… I mean, all for the sake of truth. Well, empirical evidence. You know, where the compass hand was pointing and…” Richard trailed off in the face of the massive and imposing angel that happened to be sitting with him in an infinite field of flowers while he should be very, very dead.
“So why do you think you’re here?” Triple H asked, again.
“Because God wants me here?” Richard said, frustrated.
“Exactly!” beamed the angel. “Now you’ve got it.”
“Great,” Richard enthused.
Triple H stepped to the ground and started walking. Richard hopped after him, jogging to keep pace with the angel’s great strides.
“H-hey, where are you going?” Richard asked, nervously.
“We’re going to put you back down on Earth, Doctor Richard M. Redherring. It just so happens your aWave generators have met with unexplainable disasters and theistic belief is at an all time high.” He coughed. "God does that sometimes."
“You’re putting me back? But, I’m dead. Aren’t I supposed to be judged? Thrown into a lake of fire? Something?”
The angel stopped. “Well, hey, if that’s what you want--”
“No, no!” Richard placated, “Quite all right. Let’s do what you want to do.”
“Oh. Ok. Good. We’re going to have you get born somewhere in Rome. You’re going to make a great pope.”
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3 comments:
This was entertaining to read, but slightly confusing. Does it point that there are too many faults in atheism and that it is a fallacy?
wv: doxaprem, the drug of the future.
Amusing. Very amusing
You're writing is so great! Keep up the awesome work!
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