Going To Heaven

AMONG THE MANY BENEFITS of being retired is the opportunity to make your own schedule. I go to be early, have for years. Sometimes I sleep well, sometimes I don't. Often I awaken in the middle of the night, arise,and do a little reading, computing, or I turn on the television to watch some midnight news, or, if I'm lucky, a good old fashioned shoot 'em up western. The main drawbacks of middle of the night televsion are lousy programming, an inundation of commercials and info-mmercials, and reruns. It helps to have one's remote control in hand, and a willingness and determination to use it. Being male helps. sometimes something catches my attention, even a commercial. The relatively low cost of middle of the night advertising attracts the low budget shoestring advertisers This time, the narrator said, sonorously "would you like to know whether or not you are going to go to heaven?"..."Hell, who wouldn't?", I half sarastically said to my cat, who always awakens for my midnight ramblings, knowing the she has a snack coming. I thought about the grouchy old pentecostal dude at my senior center, who died several years ago, and often bragged that he had a "one way ticket to heaven", presumably because of his salvation through Christ, perfect church attendance, and hatred of democrats. Much that I despised him for having assigned me to eternal damnation as he did all democrats, I envied him in a strange sort of way. His certitude, although based entirely in his self aggrandizing fantasies, gave him comfort. Vicious, primtitive, and purely imaginary that both heaven and hell are to me (I firmly believe that anyone who believes in hell is mentally ill), I understand the attraction. The commercial went on to promote a website, "Heavenornot.com"...I immediately liked the name; nice and straightforward, enticing. I decided to visit, but was in no hurry. I thought about it for awhile, whether or not it was, whether it would prove to be or seem to me...a scam. I quickly decided that, yes it was most likely a scam. Arguably in fact it is a scam a priori, for someone, anyone to pretend, for profit or otherwise, to have even the faintest idea of not only whether anybody is going to heaven, but if heaven even exists. Nobody knows. Nobody. All contrary claims are false, scams, by definition, whether well intended or not. At length I logged on, but didn't stay long. The site was fancy, complex, with many items and choices to click on, slick, well produced. I pretty quickly concluded that this particular scam was well intentioned, and that its perpetrators would be outraged, hurt, and horrified, and downright wrathy to be accused of running a scam. My assessment is that the website is the genuine well intened product of a bona fide religious organization or church, trying to save the world, and probably not trying to profit from doing so other than to cover the cost of the website, break even, and maybe pay a little the people who worked and still work on the site. And, whow knows? Maybe a little extra for the church itself, that it might continue on its sacred journey,its God ordained mission to witness unto the world online the salvation offerd by Jesus Christ, the savior. But, who knows? Maybe I'm wrong. Worse yet, I still have absolutely no idea whether or not I am going to go to heaven. Maybe I should return to the website, and cooperate fully. Maybe it doesn't even matter, or hasn't been decided yet.