To answer the first part, I believe it depends on your goals. For those of us with short term goals to live life to the fullest and fuck everyone else, laugh away. For those people more concerned with the afterlife, it's nothing but tears. I believe I know some saints, or as close as you can be, and they're nice kids, but not much fun. Give me a drinkin', smokin', premarital sex havin', swearin' group of kids that make racist jokes, and I'm a happy girl.
Also, I am Protestant, and I believe that no person is without sin. If you're a saint, then there's something wrong with you. Man is meant to sin. Saints just make us all look bad. They're like that one kid in lecture who answers all of the professor's questions and ruins the curve on the final.
Somehow I just can't trust people who are too good. Sure they seem happy, in a sweet, vacant kind of way. But I can't help feeling like something is very off with a majority of the people I think of as saintly. I would much rather laugh with the sinners. Those saint suckers are just going to clean up our messes anyway and we can totally skip them on line to heaven. As a Roman Catholic, so long as I remember to apologize for all the bad, nasty, horrible things I've done then I get off scott free. Which is a nice bonus. But other than that I avoid living by the rules of Billy Joel songs since they're all about him trying to get laid. Although he seems to have been absurdly sucessful.
In my understanding, this implies that these two things will be happening in the afterlife. To which I wonder: if the saints lived such pious lives, why are they crying in heaven? Isn't it their time to tear it up as a reward? And if the sinners were such bastards, then how come they're laughing and not burning in hell? In the event that this is a question of what to do in this life, then yes, obviously I'd rather be laughing than crying.
Maybe I'm an existentialist, or just don't entirely believe in an afterlife the way religion tells us it happens, but I honestly don't think we will get "punished" when we die for the way we've lived our lives. So I don't think there will ever be an afterlife where we are forced to either "laugh with the sinners" or "cry with the saints."
So are the sinners more fun? More fun than the saints is what the question implies, so yes. But you have to look at what degree of "sinner" we're talking about here. True "sinners," the people who are horrible and unkind, those that have evil in their hearts, cannot be compared to the type of "sinner" Billy Joel sings about. Someone who goes out drinking with their buddies and raises hell isn't so much a sinner as someone who goes on a rampage killing someone. It's all relative. But for these purposes, I think everyone would choose to hang with the type of Hellions Billy Joel calls a "sinner." Of COURSE they're more fun - doing what you're "not supposed to" do will always be more fun. I challenge anyone to put up a good argument in defense of the saints. Sure, they've got a golden ticket to heaven (whatever that may be) but if all they're going to do is cry when they get there, then fuck that.
Here's how this works: Every day around midnight, I'll post a stupid question. You have all day to post equally stupid responses, and then at the end of the day, I'll arbitrarily select my favorite answer(s) and feature it/them on the next day's post. "Winners" will be chosen based upon quality of answer and my own personal biases regarding what constitutes the "right" opinion, not necessarily in that order. All you have to do is press the comment button, post your answer there, and pray that I'm in good spirits when I read it. Let the games begin.
5 comments:
To answer the first part, I believe it depends on your goals. For those of us with short term goals to live life to the fullest and fuck everyone else, laugh away. For those people more concerned with the afterlife, it's nothing but tears. I believe I know some saints, or as close as you can be, and they're nice kids, but not much fun. Give me a drinkin', smokin', premarital sex havin', swearin' group of kids that make racist jokes, and I'm a happy girl.
Also, I am Protestant, and I believe that no person is without sin. If you're a saint, then there's something wrong with you. Man is meant to sin. Saints just make us all look bad. They're like that one kid in lecture who answers all of the professor's questions and ruins the curve on the final.
Somehow I just can't trust people who are too good. Sure they seem happy, in a sweet, vacant kind of way. But I can't help feeling like something is very off with a majority of the people I think of as saintly. I would much rather laugh with the sinners. Those saint suckers are just going to clean up our messes anyway and we can totally skip them on line to heaven.
As a Roman Catholic, so long as I remember to apologize for all the bad, nasty, horrible things I've done then I get off scott free. Which is a nice bonus. But other than that I avoid living by the rules of Billy Joel songs since they're all about him trying to get laid. Although he seems to have been absurdly sucessful.
In my understanding, this implies that these two things will be happening in the afterlife. To which I wonder: if the saints lived such pious lives, why are they crying in heaven? Isn't it their time to tear it up as a reward? And if the sinners were such bastards, then how come they're laughing and not burning in hell? In the event that this is a question of what to do in this life, then yes, obviously I'd rather be laughing than crying.
Maybe I'm an existentialist, or just don't entirely believe in an afterlife the way religion tells us it happens, but I honestly don't think we will get "punished" when we die for the way we've lived our lives. So I don't think there will ever be an afterlife where we are forced to either "laugh with the sinners" or "cry with the saints."
So are the sinners more fun? More fun than the saints is what the question implies, so yes. But you have to look at what degree of "sinner" we're talking about here.
True "sinners," the people who are horrible and unkind, those that have evil in their hearts, cannot be compared to the type of "sinner" Billy Joel sings about. Someone who goes out drinking with their buddies and raises hell isn't so much a sinner as someone who goes on a rampage killing someone. It's all relative. But for these purposes, I think everyone would choose to hang with the type of Hellions Billy Joel calls a "sinner." Of COURSE they're more fun - doing what you're "not supposed to" do will always be more fun. I challenge anyone to put up a good argument in defense of the saints. Sure, they've got a golden ticket to heaven (whatever that may be) but if all they're going to do is cry when they get there, then fuck that.
Billy Joel sucks.
Dude, look at your friends.
Laughing with sinners, in a relevant landslide.
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