{"id":7528,"date":"2016-03-31T14:52:15","date_gmt":"2016-03-31T14:52:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/?p=7528"},"modified":"2016-03-31T14:52:15","modified_gmt":"2016-03-31T14:52:15","slug":"heaven-free-admission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/?p=7528","title":{"rendered":"Heaven &#8212; Free Admission"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Heaven &#8212; Free Admission<\/p>\n<p>More and more of us South Enders are losing their religion, don\u2019t ask me why.  I just read a survey that showed a quarter of us don\u2019t believe in a Supreme Being, too bad for Donald Trump.  That\u2019s way up since the last survey.  But here\u2019s the odd part:  the number of us who don\u2019t believe in God but believe in an afterlife doubled.  Faith based Heaven, I suppose, or maybe just bad logic, a trend that seems to be more and more prevalent.<\/p>\n<p>Down at the Little Church in the Ravine, Rev. Paul makes it a point most every Sunday to exhort his flock to eschew sin.  Live a holy life, he preaches, and if you mess up, ask the Good Lord for forgiveness.  Believe on the Lord, he says, or surely Hell will follow.  <\/p>\n<p>Now, I may be mistaken here, but I\u2019m guessing most of the folks who believe in an afterlife are talking about Streets of Gold, not Beelzebub\u2019s BBQ.  You don\u2019t believe in a deity, you probably won\u2019t buy the quaint notion of the Devil.  And if you think Heaven is waiting for you no matter what, why not enjoy a little sinning while you\u2019re waiting for the Pearly Gates to open?  No punishment waiting, no purgatory for the wicked.  Believe me, Pastor Paul doesn\u2019t pound that pulpit with his ragged Bible to tell parishioners they got nothing to lose if they covet their neighbor\u2019s wife.  Go right ahead, cheat the other guy on that used car you said was running great when you know damn well the engine isn\u2019t getting oil up in the cylinder head.  You can make a little extra money and still get a reservation in the Angel Motel after your last breath.<\/p>\n<p>Shirley, my neighbor who runs the Pampered Pekingese Pet Grooming service, claims she\u2019ll be reincarnated.  As a pup.  The Hindu believe the Wheel rewards those who do good, but I guess now we think we get what we want, not what we deserve.  Shirley better hope she doesn\u2019t end up at the pound with all the other unwanted pets.  Not everyone gets pampered in this mean old world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Heaven &#8212; Free Admission More and more of us South Enders are losing their religion, don\u2019t ask me why. I just read a survey that showed a quarter of us don\u2019t believe in a Supreme Being, too bad for Donald Trump. That\u2019s way up since the last survey. But here\u2019s the odd part: the number [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rantings-and-ravings"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7528"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7528\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7529,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7528\/revisions\/7529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}