NBB SUNDAY-SUNDAY MEDICINE: DO HEAVEN AND HELL REALLY EXIST?

April 10, 2922

This is “No Bullshiting,” by Harry Agina.

Greetings, folks!
It is another Sunday (as if you didn’t know already), and this is another NBB Praise Worship “Sunday-Sunday Medicine.” For my new readers who do not know, this is the series where NBB recognizes the existence and the awesome powers and goodness of the Almighty God, and praise Him. The praises are through gospel songs, and we call them “Sunday-Sunday Medicines.”

Instead of one medicine, I have two for you today. One is an excitable and exciting song of a living, relatively unknown African, Jay Mykee, titled “Heaven.” The other is the mellow song and music of a western legend who is probably in heaven now, or hell…who knows? Nobody, that’s who! I speak of the late legendary Jim Reeves of the USA, and his song, titled “This World Is Not My Home.” It was first recorded in1924 by the original author, “Stovepipe No.1.” Several other artists had their renditions of this song by the time Jim Reeves did his own rendition in 1962. But his rendition overshadowed the rest of the pack, meeeeeeen!!!

Both songs in my medicine chest today have something of interest in common. It is called “Heaven.” Uum huh, my topic says that my usual little philosophical titbits before the “Sunday-Medicine” today, is about heaven and hell. So, it behooves me to give you a double-doze of befitting gospel songs.

Whereas Jay Mykee (Mikee) sings about preparing oneself for heaven, Jim Reeves tells us that he’s already home in heaven, that he’s just passing through the world, a stranger here. As they say, do mind what comes out of your mouth! Jim told us that the world was not his home, not good enough for him any longer. “The angels beckon me from heaven’s open door, and I can’t feel at home in this world anymore,” he concluded. And, just two years after publishing the song in 1962, Jim died at very young age of 40 (1923 – 1964). He was in a plane crash near Nashville in Tennessee. I do hope that he is truly in his home, heaven, meeeeeeen!!!

And. that brings me to this question: Is there really any heaven for Jim Reeves to live in, huh? Do heaven and hell truly exist? Let’s give you my little philosophical titbits on this before the double-medicine from Jay Mykee and Jim Reeves.

Religions all over the world thrive on beliefs or doctrines. The doctrines are often inculcated in the faithful through brainwashing. In the past, especially, some religions actually inculcated the doctrines in unwilling so-called faithful through the barrels of guns. The doctrines control the mentality, behaviors, and acts or actions of the faithful, in various ways. Many, if not most of the doctrines, are man-made, but they are all attributed to God, in order to gain acceptance. In the Christian religion, some man-made doctrines are also attributed to Jesus Christ. Muslims also claim that their doctrines were from Prophet Mohammad. All this, of course, amounts to lies and deceit by the authors of those doctrines. My theme in this discourse is that some of those lies and deceit are self-serving and bad; but some are actually good for humanity.

The doctrine of the existence of heaven and hell is one of those that have been debated for a long time. Some religions of the world believe that there are heaven and hell in another life that exists after death here on earth. There are people who disagree. They believe that when one is dead on earth, one’s chapter is permanently closed! And then, there are people and religious sects, such as the “Jehovah’s Witnesses,” who believe that there is heaven, but no hell. The Caucasian Christian Bishop whose video clip I have here seems to subscribe to this particular doctrine.

Guess what; in this discourse, I don’t really give a fuck whether heaven and hell exist. Instead, I want to introduce my own peculiar argument. I want to talk about the essence of the doctrine, regardless if it is authentic or not.

In Christianity, the authors of some of the non-divine doctrines actually meant well for the people. But some doctrines were mischievously instituted for selfish reasons. Unfortunately, the only way for any mortal to find out for sure what really is out there after death, is to die. And, we don’t really want to die in order to find out; do we? Nope, everyone wants to go to heaven, yet no one wants to die! Besides, what is the use of dying to find out if heaven exists huh? We can no longer be here to talk about it if we do die in order to find out, meeeeeeen!!!

Sure, “near-death-experience” stories abound, where people talk about dying and coming back to life. Some claim to have seen semblances of heaven or/and hell. Some even claim that they talked with angels, and stuff like that. But I have dreams similar to those, too, and it all happens while I sleep, not in death. So, how do I know for sure that the so-called near-death stories are not dreams by people in comma?

On the other hand, though, dreams of other realms or other worlds may, on their own, mean that those places do exist. But we still can’t claim for sure that they exist based on those dreams; can we? Nope, I don’t think so! The fact is that we may never know for sure. We have to continue believing whatever we believe based on that interesting concept called faith.

Wouldn’t it be so nice if God would one day decide to clear all the mystery for humankind? It sure would be great if He speaks to us in a clear form and language that we can understand. But, if God should clear the mystery, it would be like salt losing its salty taste, which renders it no longer salt, meeeeeeen?!!!

Interestingly, the “Jehovah’s Witnesses” Christian denomination believes that there is heaven, but no hell. The bishop in my referenced video is not clear if he does believe in heaven like the Jehovah’s Witnesses. But he does say clearly, “I believe in life after death, but not for punishment or reward.” That’s unlikely, if you ask me. In fact, even as you haven’t asked me, I still say so, meeeeeeen!!!

I have no basis at this time to make a meaningful or authoritative contribution in this authenticity argument. Offhandedly, though, I do question anybody’s belief in the existence of heaven, but not hell. I believe in the existence of flip-sides of things, or the notion of dualism. Hence, I tend to believe that it is less likely to have heaven without hell, or hell without heaven. Speaking offhandedly, I say that it is likely that we have either both, or none.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses ‘heaven-without-hell‘ belief is based on the statement in the Book of Genesis, that “in the beginning God created the heaven and earth.” Hell is not mentioned. And, the Witnesses argue that if God created hell as well, it would have been mentioned in that statement. Well, I do not really quite see the omission of hell in that creation statement as a sure proof that there is heaven but no hell. Besides, maybe God left out the hell initially because there were no bad people to occupy it yet. Eventually, Adam and Eve led humanity into sin, and the need for hell came up, meeeeeeen!!!

THE NBB PERSPECTIVE:
Now, to my own peculiar perspective in the whole matter. I can speak more authoritatively on THE ESSENCE of the doctrine of heaven and hell. And I say, If indeed heaven and hell are the figments of the imagination of a mortal, then such a mortal was a genius! And, I’ll tell you why, pronto!

It was ingenious to come up with such fabrication to keep humanity in moral check! It would be one of those man-made deceitful doctrines that I do see as positive. If you haven’t done so already, try to ponder how bad the world would be if there was no fear of the after-life repercussion called hell. Think of what would be, if humanity did not have the expectation to be rewarded to make heaven by doing good deeds. I have pondered over it already, and the image that I feel of a world without those expectations and fears is scary.

It is bad enough as it is now, with many religious sects in the world preaching the existence of hell and heaven. Their faithful believe it. And, accordingly, they try to do the “right thing” in order to avoid ending up in hell on the Judgment Day. They want to make heaven, so they try and do good deeds. Naturally, many with this mentality still do get tempted into bad deeds, but majority is basically in moral and crime check.

The group of people who do not believe in either heaven or hell are likely to have high population of bad characters. Most killers and rapists and sadists and all the other bad people have no compunction and they have no fear of repercussions. They don’t believe that there is hell to suffer or heaven to benefit later. Fortunately for humanity, this group of people are in the minority. Imagine what would happen if these kinds of people outnumbered God-fearing people in any society. It would be a total dog-eat-dog world. Then, go one step further and try to imagine what would be, if there was no fear of hell to suffer at all amongst the entire humanity. We would be worse than wild animals!

So, I say, true or false, the belief in the existence of heaven and hell among humanity is very positive. If indeed it was a figment of an author’s imagination, then I hail him or her! He/she was a genius to come up with such effective positive crime-prevention doctrine.

In fact, I will tell you my main reason not to even dabble into the debate. If indeed heaven and hell don’t exist, I won’t want to be part of proving it! It is absolutely counterproductive. Let’s just let people to continue believing that hell and heaven exist. It makes the world a better place, meeeeeeeeeen!!!

Here now are:

(1) The Sunday Medicine of Jay Mykee:

(2) The Sunday Medicine of Jim Reeves:

And (3) The video clip of the Christian Bishop who says that there is no hell:

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