Good Versus Evil

Our society is tolerant.  It is multi-cultural.  It is accepting of virtually anything and everything even to the point of only lightly punishing criminal behavior.  However, it is becoming increasingly apparent that what our society does not tolerate or accept is God.  Satan is not acknowledged as a force and evil as a practice, or even as a concept, is fading out of our collective consciousness.  Our society seems to be in a decline with greater violence, poverty, sickness, and disasters occurring without anyone seeming to see any connection to either Satan or God, maybe it is time for a review.

Perhaps the best place to begin our review is with the Ten Commandments. The first Commandment is “I am the Lord, thy God. Thou shalt have no other gods before me” so this seems like a good place to start with the question “do we have other gods?”  Many people might disagree and claim that we have no other gods because God is simply a myth created by man.  In fact modern science has gone to great lengths to prove that God doesn’t exist.  Without any empirical evidence modern science has embraced the belief that a random and accidental event initiated life.  In fact the creation of the universe is viewed as a scientific event as yet unexplained but believed to be eventually explainable by science.  In effect modern science like all religions is faith based but has replaced God with Man in the form of scientists. Modern science requires the same level of faith as any religion does. 

Our society in general has increasingly embraced atheism as the atheists drive God out of any public display or acknowledgement that He exists.  The atheist sees his existence and the circumstances of that existence as random chance.  The atheist has no purpose in life and is not constrained by any moral boundary other than one that is self imposed or culturally imposed.  To the atheist there is no such thing as a soul or an after life and it is delusional to think otherwise.  Therefore, when the atheist attempts to suppress or repudiate God, he thinks he is acting in the best interest of society, but others might think he is merely whistling past the graveyard.

The real irony of the atheist position of course is that it has no basis in fact and rests exclusively on his belief that God’s existence cannot be proven.  The irony is that he cannot prove God doesn’t exist.  So the argument is left unresolved and a matter of faith.  But what of Satan – can his existence be proven or demonstrated?  When God created man he created him in His image and gave him free will—meaning Man was given the right to choose.  Satan takes advantage of that right and tempts Man into making the wrong choice.  This is why the fundamentalist Muslims call America “The Great Satan”, because America is filled with temptations, provide in their eyes, by Satan.  Of course this doesn’t prove Satan exists but if Satan is evil personified then it should be clear, even to the most ardent atheist, that our society is increasingly corrupt.  America is a place where free choice reigns supreme where everyone is tempted every day to commit some sin or violation of the Ten Commandments, which of course is Satan’s objective.

But the relevant question is” is our tolerant and multi-cultural society becoming more or less evil?”  Of course the arguments about the answer to this question could go on endlessly because our society has become so complicated, but perhaps we could narrow the discussion to the Ten Commandments.  These are part of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity so perhaps they allow us to address the question more easily.  For example “Honor the Sabbath” is a commandment and at one time businesses were closed on the Sabbath which varies among religions but is that true today?  Certainly some businesses remain closed on their Sabbath but I submit our society at large does not honor the Sabbath. 

What about the Commandment against adultery?  Statistics show that marriage as an institution is in decline while living together is growing.  At one time living together was even called “living in sin” and viewed as fornication but it is no longer viewed as a sin but simply accepted as an alternative way of life.  Beyond that divorce is also growing with about half of all marriages ending in divorce.  The part of the marriage vow where you are joined by God has declined into mere words without meaning.  Ministers and other men of God blithely continue marrying divorced people even though they have violated the marriage vow already.  So adultery is growing in our society and is no longer condemned either morally or legally. 

What about taking the Lord’s name in vain, is this commandment being honored today?  Anyone who has been to a movie recently knows that they increasingly border on pornography with language that is embarrassing and one time would not have been tolerated in polite society.  For all intents and purposes this commandment might as well not exist.

Of course violations of the other commandments have always existed, and existed even in the time of Moses.  I don’t think any society or religion to day actually worships graven images, nor do I believe any society today condones murder or theft or perjury.  Still all of these evils exist today and are the result of individual choice – of free will.  Satan uses the free will ordained by God to influence man to make poor choices.  These poor choices lead us away from God and into the hands of Satan.  The atheist or non-believe will argue that while evil exists in our society it has nothing to do with Satan who is as much of a myth as God.  Evil is a concept and an act defined by man.

But the dichotomy between Good and Evil is ancient with good being represented by God in some form and evil represented by Satan in some form.  Yes – God and Satan exist even if it only seen as good and evil and these forces have always existed under different names in different societies but the relevant point is that good and evil exist.  The names used to describe these is irrelevant but the question remains “ is our society more or less moral?”  Do we see increases in evil in our society?  Is our society more or less evil than it was in the 1950’s?  In the 1850’s?

 

 

 

 

 

Political Correctness -- A Threat to Civilization

I did not write this, it is a sermon delivered by Rabbi Schlomo Lewis of Atlanta Georgia. I urge you to read this very powerful sermon because it truly describes how our apathy toward terrorism and our determination to be politically correct is endangering not just society but civilization itself.


EHR KUMT First Day of Rosh Hashanah 2010 Sermon delivered by Rabbi Schlomo Lewis of Atlanta


"I thought long and I thought hard on whether to deliver the sermon I am about to share. We all wish to bounce happily out of shul on the High Holidays, filled with warm fuzzies, ready to gobble up our brisket, our honey cakes and our kugel. We want to be shaken and stirred – but not too much. We want to be guilt-schlepped – but not too much. We want to be provoked but not too much. We want to be transformed but not too much.

I get it, but as a rabbi I have a compelling obligation, a responsibility to articulate what is in my heart and what I passionately believe must be said and must be heard. And so, I am guided not by what is easy to say but by what is painful to express. I am guided not by the frivolous but by the serious. I am guided not by delicacy but by urgency.

We are at war. We are at war with an enemy as savage, as voracious, as heartless as the Nazis but one wouldn’t know it from our behavior. During WWII we didn’t refer to storm troopers as freedom fighters. We didn’t call the Gestapo, militants. We didn’t see the attacks on our Merchant Marine as acts by rogue sailors. We did not justify the Nazis rise to power as our fault. We did not grovel before the Nazis, thumping our hearts and confessing to abusing and mistreating and humiliating the German people. We did not apologize for Dresden, nor for The Battle of the Bulge, nor for El Alamein, nor for D-Day.

Evil – ultimate, irreconcilable, evil threatened us and Roosevelt and Churchill had moral clarity and an exquisite understanding of what was at stake. It was not just the Sudetenland, not just Tubruk, not just Vienna, not just Casablanca. It was the entire planet. Read history and be shocked at how frighteningly close Hitler came to creating a Pax Germana on every continent.


Not all Germans were Nazis – most were decent, most were revolted by the Third Reich, most were good citizens hoisting a beer, earning a living and tucking in their children at night. But, too many looked away, too many cried out in lame defense – I didn’t know.” Too many were silent. Guilt absolutely falls upon those who committed the atrocities, but responsibility and guilt falls upon those who did nothing as well. Fault was not just with the goose steppers but with those who pulled the curtains shut, said and did nothing.

In WWII we won because we got it. We understood who the enemy was and we knew that the end had to be unconditional and absolute. We did not stumble around worrying about offending the Nazis. We did not measure every word so as not to upset our foe. We built planes and tanks and battleships and went to war to win….. to rid the world of malevolence.

We are at war… yet too many stubbornly and foolishly don’t put the pieces together and refuse to identify the evil doers. We are circumspect and disgracefully politically correct.

Let me mince no words in saying that from Fort Hood to Bali, from Times Square to London, from Madrid to Mumbai, from 9/11 to Gaza, the murderers, the barbarians are radical Islamists.

To camouflage their identity is sedition. To excuse their deeds is contemptible. To mask their intentions is unconscionable.

A few years ago I visited Lithuania on a Jewish genealogical tour. It was a stunning journey and a very personal, spiritual pilgrimage. When we visited Kovno we davened Maariv at the only remaining shul in the city. Before the war there were thirty-seven shuls for 38,000 Jews. Now only one, a shrinking, gray congregation. We made minyon for the handful of aged worshippers in the Choral Synagogue, a once majestic, jewel in Kovno.

After my return home I visited Cherry Hill for Shabbos. At the oneg an elderly family friend, Joe Magun, came over to me.

“Shalom,” he said. “Your abba told me you just came back from Lithuania.” “Yes,” I replied. “It was quite a powerful experience.” “Did you visit the Choral Synagogue in Kovno? The one with the big arch in the courtyard?” “Yes, I did. In fact, we helped them make minyon.” His eyes opened wide in joy at our shared memory. For a moment he gazed into the distance and then, he returned. “Shalom, I grew up only a few feet away from the arch. The Choral Synagogue was where I davened as a child.”

He paused for a moment and once again was lost in the past. His smile faded. Pain filled his wrinkled face. “I remember one Shabbos in 1938 when Vladimir Jabotinsky came to the shul” (Jabotinsky was Menachim Begin’s mentor – he was a fiery orator, an unflinching Zionist radical, whose politics were to the far right.) Joe continued “When Jabotinsky came, he delivered the drash on Shabbos morning and I can still hear his words burning in my ears. He climbed up to the shtender, stared at us from the bima, glared at us with eyes full of fire and cried out. ‘EHR KUMT. YIDN FARLAWST AYER SHTETL – He’s coming. Jews abandon your city.’ ”

We thought we were safe in Lithuania from the Nazis, from Hitler. We had lived there, thrived for a thousand years but Jabotinsky was right -- his warning prophetic. We got out but most did not.”

We are not in Lithuania. It is not the 1930s. There is no Luftwaffe overhead. No U-boats off the coast of long Island. No Panzer divisions on our borders. But make no mistake; we are under attack – our values, our tolerance, our freedom, our virtue, our land.

Now before some folks roll their eyes and glance at their watches let me state emphatically, unmistakably – I have no pathology of hate, nor am I a manic Paul Revere, galloping through the countryside. I am not a pessimist, nor prone to panic attacks. I am a lover of humanity, all humanity. Whether they worship in a synagogue, a church, a mosque, a temple or don’t worship at all. I have no bone of bigotry in my body, but what I do have is hatred for those who hate, intolerance for those who are intolerant, and a guiltless, unstoppable obsession to see evil eradicated.

Today the enemy is radical Islam but it must be said sadly and reluctantly that there are unwitting, co-conspirators who strengthen the hands of the evil doers. Let me state that the overwhelming number of Muslims are good Muslims, fine human beings who want nothing more than a Jeep Cherokee in their driveway, a flat screen TV on their wall and a good education for their children, but these good Muslims have an obligation to destiny, to decency that thus far for the most part they have avoided. The Kulturkampf is not only external but internal as well. The good Muslims must sponsor rallies in Times Square, in Trafalgar Square, in the UN Plaza, on the Champs Elysee, in Mecca condemning terrorism, denouncing unequivocally the slaughter of the innocent. Thus far, they have not. The good Muslims must place ads in the NY Times. They must buy time on network TV, on cable stations, in the Jerusalem Post, in Le Monde, in Al Watan, on Al Jazeena condemning terrorism, denouncing unequivocally the slaughter of the innocent – thus far, they have not. Their silence allows the vicious to tarnish Islam and define it.

Brutal acts of commission and yawning acts of omission both strengthen the hand of the devil.

I recall a conversation with my father shortly before he died that helped me understand how perilous and how broken is our world; that we are living on the narrow seam of civilization and moral oblivion. Knowing he had little time left he shared the following – “Shal. I am ready to leave this earth. Sure I’d like to live a little longer, see a few more sunrises, but truthfully, I’ve had it. I’m done. Finished. I hope the Good Lord takes me soon because I am unable to live in this world knowing what it has become.”

This startling admission of moral exhaustion from a man who witnessed and lived through the Depression, the Holocaust, WWII, Communist Triumphalism, McCarthyism, Strontium 90 and polio. – Yet his twilight observation was – “The worst is yet to come.” And he wanted out.

I share my father’s angst and fear that too many do not see the authentic, existential threat we face nor confront the source of our peril. We must wake up and smell the hookah.

“Lighten up, Lewis. Take a chill pill, some of you are quietly thinking. You’re sounding like Glen Beck. It’s not that bad. It’s not that real.” But I am here to tell you – “It is.” Ask the member of our shul whose sister was vaporized in the Twin Towers and identified finally by her charred teeth, if this is real or not. Ask the members of our shul who fled a bus in downtown Paris, fearing for their safety from a gang of Muslim thugs, if this is an exaggeration. Ask the member of our shul whose son tracks Arab terrorist infiltrators who target – pizza parlors, nursery schools, Pesach seders, city buses and play grounds, if this is dramatic, paranoid hyperbole.

Ask them, ask all of them – ask the American GI’s we sit next to on planes who are here for a brief respite while we fly off on our Delta vacation package. Ask them if it’s bad. Ask them if it’s real.

Did anyone imagine in the 1920’s what Europe would look like in the 1940’s. Did anyone presume to know in the coffee houses of Berlin or in the opera halls of Vienna that genocide would soon become the celebrated culture? Did anyone think that a goofy-looking painter named Shickelgruber would go from the beer halls of Munich and jail, to the Reichstag as Feuhrer in less than a decade? Did Jews pack their bags and leave Warsaw, Vilna, Athens, Paris, Bialystok, Minsk, knowing that soon their new address would be Treblinka, Sobibor, Dachau and Auschwitz?

The sages teach – “Aizehu chacham – haroeh et hanolad – Who is a wise person – he who sees into the future.” We dare not wallow in complacency, in a misguided tolerance and naïve sense of security.

We must be diligent students of history and not sit in ash cloth at the waters of Babylon weeping. We cannot be hypnotized by eloquent-sounding rhetoric that soothes our heart but endangers our soul. We cannot be lulled into inaction for fear of offending the offenders. Radical Islam is the scourge and this must be cried out from every mountain top. From sea to shining sea, we must stand tall, prideful of our stunning decency and moral resilience. Immediately after 9/11 how many mosques were destroyed in America? None. After 9/11, how many Muslims were killed in America? None. After 9/11, how many anti-Muslim rallies were held in America? None. And yet, we apologize. We grovel. We beg forgiveness.

The mystifying litany of our foolishness continues. Should there be a shul in Hebron on the site where Baruch Goldstein gunned down twenty-seven Arabs at noonday prayers? Should there be a museum praising the U.S. Calvary on the site of Wounded Knee? Should there be a German cultural center in Auschwitz? Should a church be built in the Syrian town of Ma’arra where Crusaders slaughtered over 100,000 Muslims? Should there be a thirteen story mosque and Islamic Center only a few steps from Ground Zero?

Despite all the rhetoric, the essence of the matter can be distilled quite easily. The Muslim community has the absolute, constitutional right to build their building wherever they wish. I don’t buy the argument – “When we can build a church or a synagogue in Mecca they can build a mosque here.” America is greater than Saudi Arabia. And New York is greater than Mecca. Democracy and freedom must prevail.

Can they build? Certainly. May they build? Certainly. But should they build at that site? No -- but that decision must come from them, not from us. Sensitivity, compassion cannot be measured in feet or yards or in blocks. One either feels the pain of others and cares, or does not.

If those behind this project are good, peace-loving, sincere, tolerant Muslims, as they claim, then they should know better, rip up the zoning permits and build elsewhere.

Believe it or not, I am a dues-paying, card carrying member of the ACLU, yet from start of finish, I find this sorry episode disturbing to say the least.

William Burroughs, the novelist and poet, in a wry moment wrote – “After one look at this planet, any visitor from outer space would say – “I want to see the manager.”

Let us understand that the radical Islamist assaults all over the globe are but skirmishes, fire fights, and vicious decoys. Christ and the anti-Christ. Gog U’Magog. The Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness; the bloody collision between civilization and depravity is on the border between Lebanon and Israel. It is on the Gaza Coast and in the Judean Hills of the West Bank. It is on the sandy beaches of Tel Aviv and on the cobblestoned mall of Ben Yehuda Street. It is in the underground schools of Sderot and on the bullet-proofed inner-city buses. It is in every school yard, hospital, nursery, classroom, park, theater – in every place of innocence and purity.

Israel is the laboratory – the test market. Every death, every explosion, every grisly encounter is not a random, bloody orgy. It is a calculated, strategic probe into the heart, guts and soul of the West.

In the Six Day War, Israel was the proxy of Western values and strategy while the Arab alliance was the proxy of Eastern, Soviet values and strategy. Today too, it is a confrontation of proxies, but the stakes are greater than East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Israel in her struggle represents the civilized world, while Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Queda, Iran, Islamic Jihad, represent the world of psychopathic, loathesome evil.

As Israel, imperfect as she is, resists the onslaught, many in the Western World have lost their way displaying not admiration, not sympathy, not understanding, for Israel’s galling plight, but downright hostility and contempt. Without moral clarity, we are doomed because Israel’s galling plight ultimately will be ours. Hanna Arendt in her classic Origins of Totalitarianism accurately portrays the first target of tyranny as the Jew. We are the trial balloon. The canary in the coal mine. If the Jew/Israel is permitted to bleed with nary a protest from “good guys” then tyranny snickers and pushes forward with its agenda.

Moral confusion is a deadly weakness and it has reached epic proportions in the West; from the Oval Office to the UN, from the BBC to Reuters to MSNBC, from the New York Times to Le Monde, from university campuses to British teachers unions, from the International Red Cross to Amnesty International, from Goldstone to Elvis Costello, from the Presbyterian Church to the Archbishop of Canterbury.

There is a message sent and consequences when our president visits Turkey and Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and not Israel.

There is a message sent and consequences when free speech on campus is only for those championing Palestinian rights.

There is a message sent and consequences when the media deliberately doctors and edits film clips to demonize Israel.

There is a message sent and consequences when the UN blasts Israel relentlessly, effectively ignoring Iran, Sudan, Venezuela, North Korea, China and other noxious states.

There is a message sent and consequences when liberal churches are motivated by Liberation Theology, not historical accuracy.

There is a message sent and consequences when murderers and terrorists are defended by the obscenely transparent “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.”

John Milton warned, “Hypocrisy is the only evil that walks invisible.”

A few days after the Gaza blockade incident in the spring, a congregant happened past my office, glanced in and asked in a friendly tone –

“Rabbi. How’re y’ doing?”

I looked up, sort of smiled and replied – “I’ve had better days.”

“What’s the matter? Is there anything I can do to cheer you up?” he inquired.

“Thank you for the offer but I’m just bummed out today and I showed him a newspaper article I was reading.

“Madrid gay pride parade bans Israeli group over Gaza Ship Raid.” I explained to my visitor – “The Israeli gay pride contingent from Tel Aviv was not allowed to participate in the Spanish gay pride parade because the mayor of Tel Aviv did not apologize for the raid by the Israeli military.”

The only country in the entire Middle East where gay rights exist, is Israel. The only country in the entire Middle East where there is a gay pride parade, is Israel. The only country in the Middle East that has gay neighborhoods and gay bars, is Israel.

Gays in the Gaza would be strung up, executed by Hamas if they came out and yet Israel is vilified and ostracized. Disinvited to the parade.

Looking for logic?

Looking for reason?

Looking for sanity?

Kafka on his darkest, gloomiest day could not keep up with this bizarre spectacle and we “useful idiots” pander and fawn over cutthroats, sinking deeper and deeper into moral decay, as the enemy laughs all the way to the West Bank and beyond.

It is exhausting and dispiriting. We live in an age that is redefining righteousness where those with moral clarity are an endangered, beleaguered specie.

Isaiah warned us thousands of years ago – “Oye Lehem Sheh-Korim Layome, Laila v’Laila, yome – Woe to them who call the day, night and the night, day.” We live on a planet that is both Chelm and Sodom. It is a frightening and maddening place to be.

How do we convince the world and many of our own, that this is not just anti-Semitism, that this is not just anti-Zionism but a full throttled attack by unholy, radical Islamists on everything that is morally precious to us?

How do we convince the world and many of our own that conciliation is not an option, that compromise is not a choice?

Everything we are. Everything we believe. Everything we treasure, is at risk.

The threat is so unbelievably clear and the enemy so unbelievably ruthless how anyone in their right mind doesn’t get it is baffling. Let’s try an analogy. If someone contracted a life-threatening infection and we not only scolded them for using antibiotics but insisted that the bacteria had a right to infect their body and that perhaps, if we gave the invading infection an arm and a few toes, the bacteria would be satisfied and stop spreading

Anyone buy that medical advice? Well, folks, that’s our approach to the radical Islamist bacteria. It is amoral, has no conscience and will spread unless it is eradicated. – There is no negotiating. Appeasement is death.

I was no great fan of George Bush – didn’t vote for him. (By the way, I’m still a registered Democrat.) I disagreed with many of his policies but one thing he had right. His moral clarity was flawless when it came to the War on Terror, the War on Radical Islamist Terror. There was no middle ground – either you were friend or foe. There was no place in Bush’s world for a Switzerland. He knew that this competition was not Toyota against G.M., not the Iphone against the Droid, not the Braves against the Phillies, but a deadly serious war, winner take all. Blink and you lose. Underestimate, and you get crushed.

I know that there are those sitting here today who have turned me off. But I also know that many turned off their rabbis seventy five years ago in Warsaw, Riga, Berlin, Amsterdam, Cracow, Vilna. I get no satisfaction from that knowledge, only a bitter sense that there is nothing new under the sun.

Enough rhetoric – how about a little “show and tell?” A few weeks ago on the cover of Time magazine was a horrific picture with a horrific story. The photo was of an eighteen year old Afghani woman, Bibi Aisha, who fled her abusive husband and his abusive family. Days later the Taliban found her and dragged her to a mountain clearing where she was found guilty of violating Sharia Law. Her punishment was immediate. She was pinned to the ground by four men while her husband sliced off her ears, and then he cut off her nose.

That is the enemy (show enlarged copy of magazine cover.)

If nothing else stirs us. If nothing else convinces us, let Bibi Aisha’s mutilated face be the face of Islamic radicalism. Let her face shake up even the most complacent and naïve among us. In the holy crusade against this ultimate evil, pictures of Bibi Aisha’s disfigurement should be displayed on billboards, along every highway from Route 66 to the Autobahn, to the Transarabian Highway. Her picture should be posted on every lobby wall from Tokyo to Stockholm to Rio. On every network, at every commercial break, Bibi Aisha’s face should appear with the caption – “Radical Islamic savages did this.” And underneath – “This ad was approved by Hamas, by Hezbollah, by Taliban, by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, by Islamic Jihad, by Fatah al Islam, by Magar Nodal Hassan, by Richard Reid, by Ahmanijad, by Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, by Osama bin Laden, by Edward Said, by The Muslim Brotherhood, by Al Queda, by CAIR.”

“The moral sentiment is the drop that balances the sea” said Ralph Waldo Emerson. Today, my friends, the sea is woefully out of balance and we could easily drown in our moral myopia and worship of political correctness.

We peer up into the heavens sending probes to distant galaxies. We peer down into quarks discovering particles that would astonish Einstein. We create computers that rival the mind, technologies that surpass science fiction. What we imagine, with astounding rapidity, becomes real. If we dream it, it does, indeed, come. And yet, we are at a critical point in the history of this planet that could send us back into the cave, to a culture that would make the Neanderthal blush with shame.

Our parents and grandparents saw the swastika and recoiled, understood the threat and destroyed the Nazis. We see the banner of Radical Islam and can do no less.

A rabbi was once asked by his students…. “Rebbi. Why are your sermons so stern?” Replied the rabbi, “If a house is on fire and we chose not to wake up our children, for fear of disturbing their sleep, would that be love? Kinderlach, ‘di hoyz brent.’ Children our house is on fire and I must arouse you from your slumber.”

During WWII and the Holocaust was it business as usual for priests, ministers, rabbis? Did they deliver benign homilies and lovely sermons as Europe fell, as the Pacific fell, as North Africa fell, as the Mideast and South America tottered, as England bled? Did they ignore the demonic juggernaut and the foul breath of evil? They did not. There was clarity, courage, vision, determination, sacrifice, and we were victorious. Today it must be our finest hour as well. We dare not retreat into the banality of our routines, glance at headlines and presume that the good guys will prevail.

Democracies don’t always win. Tyrannies don’t always lose.

My friends – the world is on fire and we must awake from our slumber. “EHR KUMT.”

Hell and Heaven

Have you ever wondered about Hell? Frequently we – or at least some of us – are told to “go to Hell”, but precisely where is it? How do you get there? Well – of course we all know how you get there – you do bad things like stealing someone’s lunch, or accusing your sibling of taking the cookies, or even voting for some idiot, and for these crimes you are condemned to Hell. It is worth noting that you don’t have to devote your life to doing bad, you just have to slip once and – boom – there you are surrounded by fire and a bunch of not very nice people with tails and fangs – and pitchforks. Heaven on the other hand is a little more difficult to get into. Outside of your mother you generally don’t hear anyone tell you that you are heaven bound, and even your mother will sometimes tell you that you are Hell bound, “if you do that again!”. To get to heaven you have to spend your whole life being painfully good and all it takes is one little slip and – bang – there you are Hell bound. In fact, this problem led the Catholics to create Limbo and Purgatory as sort of way stations on your way to greet the Great Satan (who may or may not be George Bush or Hillary Clinton). But where in Hell is Hell?

As it turns out Hell goes back a long way – maybe not back to the big bang but if God did indeed create the Heavens and Earth (aka Big Bang) then when did he create Heaven and Hell? As it turns out these creations seem to have coincided with the advent of man and not only are these man made, they appear to have evolved over time. We know that primitive man provided flowers and implements to the deceased, so presumably even Neanderthal considered that there was an afterlife. But the first documentation we have relative to the dark side of the afterlife comes from ancient Egypt, but it seems clear that these concepts came from even earlier people. But even the Egyptians took time to polish and improve the afterlife. The new and improved version had the Egyptians going immediately to Taut (precise meaning and location unknown), but this was not a place of punishment reserved for the evil, but it was a place where everyone went -- sort of like Fl;orida, but only the evil were made to suffer -- exactly like Florida in the summer. Probably by being forced to listen to Rap Music, politically correct lectures, or having to watch senior citizens in Speedos and thongs, but the specific tortures are not specified so they could be worse.

Eventually Taut gave way to other forms of Hell and the term itself seems to be rooted in the concept of a hole or cavern or a dark and unpleasant place. This view of "helan" or "behalian", morphed into the Greek Hades and the Hebrew Ghenna. Eventually these dark and dismal places came to viewed as a place where a person’s moral qualities were measured with the good being rewarded and the evil punished. However, the location of(the upgraded and improved) Hades or Hell remained a little vague, but generally Hell was viewed as being far away on the other side of the Earth – like San Francisco or Los Angeles(very likely candidates), but as the world was explored and the unknown became known-- Hell had to be relocated and eventually landing “somewhere down there” meaning below the surface. Of course Heaven was never in doubt – it was always “up there” precisely where no one actually knew but it was generally acknowledged that Heaven was not anywhere on Earth, perhaps housed in a large puffy cloud. However, with the invention of air power, Heaven too had to be relocated to somewhere other than a cloud, but precisely where is also rather vague, but San Francisco and Los Angeles were definitely eliminated.

So Hell languished for a long time, gradually taking on more and more details reaching a climax with Dante, who very neatly constructed a Hell that everyone could relate to, but whether this was with God’s blessing is unclear. However, the precise location of Hell continued to elude everyone and the Catholic Church prudently took no position although it was generally considered by theologians at the time that according to Christian scripture Hell was “within the Earth”. Of course this is really not as precise as it first appears but the Bible states that the wicked “descended” into Hell which automatically defined Hell as a place that was within the Earth. An alternate interpretation might be that life on Earth is in fact Hell and any attempt to converse with a Frenchman in French is evidence of this, but then so is dealing with any government bureau.

It seems clear at this point that Hell may or may not be real, but whatever and wherever it is, it is certainly a creation of Man and God’s involvement seems miniscule if He was involved at all. So what about eternal suffering? The Christian God is a forgiving God but the architects of Hell condemn the wicked to eternal suffering, but does this reconcile with the “forgiveness” position of God? According to the Christian Bible the joys of heaven are ever lasting but Jesus said “go into the Hell, into the fire that shall never be quenched”. Apparently this is interpreted to mean that once you go into the fire you are there to be tortured for eternity, but the actual statement indicates that it is the fire that is eternal and nothing is said about the occupants remaining there for eternity. Of course this eternal fire is special, since it is unquenchable and has no requirement for fuel, so Hell-Fire is not governed by the laws of physics but is limited only by man's imagination. But religion by its nature is not logical and its tenets not necessarily subject to empirical proof – sort of like modern day liberalism.

Heaven, which is “up there” someplace, is a place of ever lasting joy, apparently an eternal Disneyland. Somehow spending eternity with a group of eternally happy saints, who are not just happy, but eternally and perpetually good, doesn’t see like a prospect that is something to look forward to and a better prospect than spending eternity being toasted. Since Heaven, like Hell, is largely a creation of Man one would think that they would have put a little more thought into it. Maybe a little sin -- here and there -- not big ones, but a little tintillation would be good, something to gossip about. Sort of like who is sleeping with which Archangel. At least on Earth there is some belief in diversity but once dead – the good are separated from the wicked, which seems rather odd because here on Earth it is the wicked who seem to be having all of the fun, while the good people are nice but --- well dull. Perhaps a new and improved version of Heaven is needed, where a few of the more interesting people might be allowed in, if no other reason than to provide something to talk about other than the weather, which in Heaven it is probably like Los Angeles – nice.

So in the final analysis the precise location of Heaven and Hell remain a mystery even though they appear to be man made and each appears to be in need of a makeover.