A Not Very Inventive Invention

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," all you dear prudent Pagans! Won't you come out to play? The sun is up, the sky is blue ... it's beautiful, and so are you!

We at "The Gods Are Bored" occasionally turn this space over to some other commentator, just for a little change of pace. On this, the day of Jerry Falwell's passing, we invite commentary from Mark Twain.

You have to ask yourself which man you'd want to see every day forever.

From the Twain diaries, his opinion on Heaven:

Isn't it curious? Isn't it interesting? You must not think I am exaggerating, for it is not so. I will give you the details.

Most, men do not sing, most men cannot sing, most men will not stay where others are singing if it be continued more than two hours. Note that.

Only about two men in a hundred can play upon a musical instrument, and not four in a hundred have any wish to learn how. Set that down.
Many men pray, not many of them like to do it. A few pray long, the others make a short-cut.

More men go to church than want to.

To forty-nine men in fifty the Sabbath day is a dreary, dreary bore.

Further, all sane people detest noise.

All people, sane or insane, like to have variety in their lives. Monotony quickly wearies them.

Now then, you have the facts. You know what men don't enjoy. Well, they have invented a heaven, out of their own heads, all by themselves; guess what it is like? In fifteen hundred years you couldn't do it. They have left out the very things they care for most their dearest pleasures--and replaced them with prayer!

In man's heaven everybody sings. There are no exceptions. The man who did not sing on earth sings there; the man who could not sing on earth sings there. Thus universal singing is not casual, not occasional, not relieved by intervals of quiet; it goes on all day long and every day during a stretch of twelve hours. And everybody stays where on earth the place would be empty in two hours. The singing is of hymns alone. Nay, it is one hymn alone. The words are always the same in number--they are only about a dozen--there is no rhyme--there is no poetry. "Hosanna, hosanna, hosanna unto the highest!" and a few such phrases constitute the whole service.

Meantime, every person is playing on a harp! Consider the deafening hurricane of sound. Consider, further, it is a praise service--a service of compliment, flattery, adulation. Do you ask who it is that is willing to endure this strange compliment, this insane compliment, and who not only endures it but likes it, enjoys it, requires it, commands it? Hold your breath: It is God! This race's God I mean--their own pet invention.

God, please welcome your servant, Jerry Falwell. Is his harp in tune?