iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Hell, Come On Down ~ |
i was handed an interesting piece of paper on my way to the Montmartre Cemetery on the 'Day of the Dead' yesterday.
Turns out it was a 'survey' on the aforementioned public holiday, known as La Toussaint, or 'All Saints' Day', here in France. At the top of the sheet it said 'Evangelical Church of New Life'.
Each question was followed by an arcane reference to what i presume must be the answers, like 'Gn 3 :2-3,6 ;Rm 5 :12'. Glad it wasn't an obligatory test - i don't think i'd have done very well! Anyway, it was quite a laugh, and here are some of the fun questions. See if you understand even fewer of them than i did (all translations are approximate and my fault, by the way):
________________________________________________
- Do you celebrate All Saints' Day?
- Do you know what it is?
What's Death
- Do you know about the Wages of Sin?
- Do you know about the Sting of Death?
After Death
- What happens to the body after death?
- In your opinion, does the soul die too?
- Do you know where the Bad & the Ugly go after death?
The Last Judgement
- Do you know who passes the Final Judgement?
The Eternal Fire
- In your opinion, who else will go into the Eternal Fire?
The Cult of the Dead
- In your opinion, do we have the right to wake the dead?
- Do you know what God does to those who wake the dead?
God's Word on Death
- Did you know that God doesn't want us to die?
- Do you know God's solution for escaping spiritual death?
- Do you know exactly when God's gonna destroy death?
________________________________________________
Now, Lord forgive me for my hubris, but do i detect just a teeny little hint of menace and self-righteousness in the above questions? OK, obviously it's not Nazi propaganda we're dealing with here. There's not even one mention of Nazism in the whole tract.
Don't get me wrong: i'm not a bible-trasher: to each their own, right? But this pernicious inflammatory tripe was aggressively thrust into my hand as i was innocently on my way to take some sensitive pics and remember my granny, and anyone else who's no longer with us who has mattered, for that matter.
To be quite honest with you, i can't really see the point of this questionnaire, seeing as they know all the answers anyway... i'm sorry, that was a lie. Unfortunately, i can see exactly the point of this vicious little flyer from a group of seriously scared souls. They're terrified of being alone and desperately want to belong to something, however fatuous its premise. Why, oh why can't belonging to the human race in all its mind-blowing beauty and wonder and humour be enough?
In three seconds flat i was just now able to be listening to John singing the transcendental I'm Only Sleeping on the holy You Tube posted by someone who has chosen to be known to one and all simply as 'fucktown'. Try clicking the song title above for yourself and let's partake of three minutes of sublime sleepy ecstacy together. Hallelujah! Can you get any more miraculous than that? Maybe, but i don't think it's our friends over at the Fires of Hell who are gonna be leading the way.
So i'll leave you with a jolly little ditty from one of my fav. raves of yesteryear, Judas Priest (no respect intended) called Burnin' Up from the classic album Hell Bent For Leather. Maybe we should play it at some of our child-brainwashing friends' funerals to accompany them on the way down, 'cause they sure as hell ain't going to heaven...
If there's any conclusion to be drawn from the above, judging by the photo, i guess it must be that: any old lamp post is closer to heaven than crosses in Paris these days.
(P.S. I've just discovered what death will be unlike - I'm sooo excited!)
(A Paris iPhone street photograph by Sab Will for the 'Paris and I' photo blog)
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