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Idea that heaven must he earned is unforiunate 1
If™
Thousands of people got damned
straight to hell last week on the UNL
campus.
I know not the damners’ names,
but I know their faces, and I know
what they say. I walked by them
more than a few times last week out
side the Nebraska Union and
promptly got damned, straight to
hell, after refusing to take a pamphlet
from a 5-year-old girl.
(Ever wonder why it’s straight to
hell? I wonder if there’s a circuitous
route, sorta like the trip Dante took
through the Inferno. If there is, I’d
prefer it.)
Anyway. I’ve been here long
enough-to know those people will
say what they say, probably-over
exaggerate for effect, argue with
those they damn and ignore those -
who try to appeal to their more civil
side. But while most Christians con
demn those whostand in judgment
of others, they’re not really any dif
ferent.
Because all most Christians
focus on, to get right to it, is hell.
What a concept hell is. I don’t
believ©4t exists, personally. It’s not
that I don’t believe in pain and suf
fering. I do.
I just think hell was mankind’s
creation, made by and for the spiritu
ally insecure who felt they needed
fear to keep them on the straight and
narrow. I say .God will save us no \
matter what.
Nevertheless, hell has made its
way into the vernacular of today’s
society. It’s our favorite curse word.
It fits well as a noun (just plain
“hell”), an adjective (“hellish”) and
an adverb (“hellishly”). Once, at a
church retreat I got scammed into by
a friend, I heard it used as a verb.
“You do not want to be helled,”
the youth leader said.
Cartoons have been named after
hell. A neighborhood in New York
has been named after it. An AC/DC
song has, too.
Not that heaven hasn’t been (I am
reminded most specifically of that
Belinda Carlisle tune about heaven
being a place on earth). But, certain
ly, human nature finds it much more
appealing to talk about how bad hell
is as opposed to the greatness of
heaven.
Heaven has always been so damn
exclusive. No one dares describe it.
“I couldn’t possibly do it,” one
religious friend said to me this week
end when I asked. “It is beyond any
thing I can imagine in my mind.”
Happiness is inconceivable. Even
when people get to heaven, I still
think they try not to like too much,
lest they be thrown out.
Hell is different. Everybody’s got
an opinion there. I’ve seen spiritual
videos where it was a dark prison. In
others, a fiery pit of demons and
ghouls. In that movie “Ghost,” it was
a bunch of nasty black shadows that
went “UNHHHH!” all the time.
Spiritual folks, (not all of them,
but some of them) punish themselves
with hell. Don’t stray, or you’ll go to
hell. And they banish others to hell
as if it were in their power to do so.
My question is why. If heaven is
so glorious, would it not be better to
preach the .greatness of it? Why : t, .
focus on not-so-sweet damnation?
Why are so many of our spiritual
leaders trying to scare nonbelievers
into seeing God’s word?
So much of it has to do with the
human failure to communicate.
People, in general, don’t respond
well to threats.
People respond to kindness.
I like the Gideons on campus the
most, because they understand that.
They just pass out a miniature ver
sion of the good book and move on.
The Mormons, too. Plus, they’re
snazzy dressers.
Of course, they have a little more
money than Crazy Joe Preacher who
wants, more than anything, to spread
the damnation.
Hell has become so ingrained in
our minds, I’m pretty sure that
everyone who believes in God also
believes that most of the world will
end up in hell.
But what if everybody got into
heaven regardless? How would that
make the super-religious feel? I
wonder if that would piss them
off. I think it would.
“They haven’t put in all the
work I have,” they’d think.
“They don’t go to church. ?
They don’t bake cookies.
They don’t picket against
abortion. They don’t love
the death penalty like I
do.
“They don’t have a
porcelain baby Jesus in
their hutch, which they
take out and stroke softly
at least once a week. They
don’t have a Jesus fish on
their car. They don’t have
sex using the rhythm
method. They aren’t me.”
Since I don’t believe there
is a helKand therefore, will be
:• j *'■-'--is ,
damned to it by some who read this
column), I’m banking on everybody
getting a free pass. My alternative is
much easier and simpler than the
myriad rules that every other religion
goes through.
The mantra is simple: You’re
going to heaven anyway, so why not
love God? There’s nothing to lose.
And I think if it were pitched that
way, no strings attached, people
would buy it.
But so many Christians can’t do
that. The brutishness of humanity,
not religion, has taught us there’s
always a catch. Even with our God.
If we don’t play by his rules, we’re
screwed. I am screwed, for example,
for my failure to capitalize “his” in
the above sentence.
Still, I think some people,
k
because they’re so miserable and
selfish, would be lost without that
approach. Obviously, they’d say, not
everybody deserves to go to heaven.
What a sad way to look at heaven
- that it must be earned. And if it is
earned, some will say, you’re going
to hell.
These people, I believe, have not
learned the grace of God. Or they
learned it and have forgotten about it
in the wake of chapters, verses, ser
mons, pulpits, demagogues, celebra
tions and church retreats.
Since my exposure to all these
things is limited, I can look at a tree
(‘cause heaven’s not just a place for
humans) and know it will go to heav
en someday and feel pretty good
about it.
And I can look
at the guy who
| just damned me
straight to hell
last week and
know he’s going to
heaven, too.
Am I naive?
Maybe. I prefer
“enlightened.”
% But I’m
f, not going to
hell for it.
mLA Even if
you say
Sfc'iv. _
W so
Maybe
you need a
God to
fear.
Me ? I
have a God
to love.
Samuel McKewon is a junior news-editorial and political science
Searching for a
When I walked out after Michael
Mann’s latest film, “The Insider,” I felt
a detest for Big Tobacco that I’ve
never felt quite so strongly before.
. It wasn’t as though these were new
feelings - my father smokes, and I
think I’ve hated the smell ever since I
was a kid - but they had never heen
really this intense before.
For the first hour alter I left the
theater,J /rated Big Tobacco. I felt the,
1998 settlement wasn’tehough. Not -
only should it pay, it ought to keep
paying.
Maybe we should even ban ciga
rettes.
It was a tough internal moment for
me, coming to terms with the fact that
I, who has always advocated personal
freedom, actually wanted to deny
someone something.
Damn, Mann’s good.
I suppose I’d always known most
of die facts behind die story - Big
Tobacco knew that nicotine was addic
tive and covered it up. I suspect the
point that realty drove it home, though
- not only had Big Tobacco known, it
tampered with tire recipe to make it
more addictive.
Big Tobacco was actually breeding
a culture of junkies, and it was getting
away with it.
There’s a moment early on in the
film, which is set in 1993, that epito
mized the whole thing. One of the pro- a
ducers for “60 Minutes” says “Toyota, la
they recall a whole line of trucks after
10 or 12 deaths; hundreds of thou- J||
sands every year, and Big Tobacco Jill
has never, ever lost a lawsuit.” rafl
So herein lies the question - Jif
what do we do about it?
Our hands are tied by millions of j
people who can’t mentally, physical
ly or psychologically afford to give w*
up heir oral nicotine fix. Dozens of ^
reports have claimed hat nicotine is ||
even more addictive than cocaine. |
People would be up in arms if he
It wouldbe Prohibition all aver 'j
agaifi. Oiganize^ crime would .../
spring ui> all over the ,
c
0
c
b
h
t
U
s money,
the warn
ings, the lack of
television advertising? !
- it all doesn’t make up
for the millions killed, the
millions deceived and used.
The Surgeon General’s warn- :
ings wer£ a*start,but a wealtone at- 1 -v
best They’re wishy-washy-and often
too soft to have real impact Pve seen :*/•
warnings that talk about causing .
low,-birth. weights or being “haz-»
k ardous to your health.”
mb Let’s put an accurate wam
■jk mg on cigarettes that reads
something like this:
Surgeon General s
Warning: Smoking can
doesn’t sound any better than where
we’re at now.
I thought for a while drat we might
establish a cut-off age. Say some year
in the future, we’ll pick 2002 for sake
of example, is die last year 18-year
olds are allowed to buy cigarettes.
People who were 18 before 2002
would still be allowed to buy cigarettes
until die day they died. This would
give the big shots in Big Tobacco a
chance to go and find another career
without stepping on anyone’s rights,
because die younger people wouldn’t
know what they were missing.
would
it work? I don’t know. It was some
thing I thought about for a while, toss
ing the idea back and forth inside my
brain, hoping that it might suddenly
click and that I’d have the answer.
When the lawsuit was announced
last year, it was all anyone could talk
about for months. Was it too much?
Should Tobacco have to pay anything
at all? Aren’t the Surgeon Generali
warnings enough? Doesn’t it matter
that they aren’t allowed to advertise on
television anymore?
No, it still wasn’t enough. The
KILL YOU.
Maybe we should go one step fur
ther on the advertising ban - ban
tobacco advertising altogether. It sure
ty won’t hurt sales that much - Big
Tobacco has a nation of addicted
smokeheads who will do almost any
thing to avoid giving up their fixes,
taking away the advertising will only
cut down on the number of new cus
tomers it gets. r
See, that’s the heart of toe smoking
problem. Big Tobacco doesn’t have
any trouble keeping toe customers it
already has - addiction will take care
I of that - but ifneeds to get
new customers all the time,
to make up for all the old
customers who die off.
Big Tobacco chews peo
H pie up and spits them back
/ .out.
Most people start smoking
young. Being bominNovember, I was
one of the first people to turn 18 in my
high school, so I wasiskdid all the time
to buy cigarettes for people.
One girl actually whined and fol
lowed me arOund for nearly two hours
before she finally gave up and tried to
“bum a smoke” from someone else,
I saw desperation in her eyes like
I’d never seen before. She wasiftr,
•behind them, her atfclieribtrvi'as. #she
didn’t get her fix, shew&^ohig to go
i;. fcfazy.she told me. Her hands were;
~ shaking,and she waspaejng ahput like
.j She was 17. ., T_
^ It'S something we’ve got to deal
with soon, because despite everything
we’ve done against Big Tobacco, it
shows no sign of quitting, and that
means the death toll will continue to
rise.
I’m not asking you to give up your
cigarettes - it’s already been proven
medically that most of you don’t have
the willpower to quit - but we need to
find some way to beat this problem.
Maybe establishing a cut-off year
is the answer, maybe not. I don’t claim
to have all die answers; I just know we
can’t stop looking for one.
Communiques to the rebel in the
field should be sent to joumalisticwar
fare@hotmail.com.
All pleas for mercy will be duly
ignored.
Cliff Hicks is a senior news-editorial and English major and a Daily Nebraskan columnist.
