I do not believe in hell. As far as I’m concerned, it does not exist. It’s simply a mythical place dreamt up centuries ago by the righteously religious to control the sheepish masses.
Righteously Religious: “Hey, you people. Do what we say or your soul will rot in eternal damnation.”
Sheepish Masses: “Really? Okay, if you say so. Thanks for the heads up.”
However, if I did believe in a metaphysical location where the souls of the damned went to face everlasting anguish, I’m quite sure it would look like the inside of an IKEA. Now don’t get me wrong, I like IKEA and their fine collection of home furnishings available at remarkably reasonable prices, but the layout of their gigantic stores gives me the creeps.
There’s a mysteriously monotonous quality to this brightly lit, maze-like commercial space that seems to hypnotize me and dull my senses. At any point during a typical IKEA visit if you were to approach me and ask how long I’ve been in the store, or how many departments I’ve walked through, I probably wouldn’t be able to answer. In fact, there’s a good chance I might not even remember my name or what day it is. Within ten minutes of entering the IKEA labyrinth, I lose all sense of time, geography and self.
So it’s no great leap for me to imagine a torturous perdition that consisted of walking a continuous IKEA maze that slowly and methodically weaved its way through the rest of eternity. To make matters worse, the damned would be forced to wander aimlessly around this brightly lit hell while being followed by a large, church-going, suburbanite family whose piety is only outweighed by their kids’ desire to run their cart into you. And, of course, every time you stopped at the in-store food court, they’d be out of their famously delicious meatballs, but would have more than enough Najad salmon to go around.
The idea of an IKEA store being hell seems so legitimately frightening, I would strongly suggest Christian clergy adopt this model of Hades as part of their dogma. No one is afraid of the old fire and brimstone model of hell because the idea of a pointy-tailed devil poking you as you boil in a cauldron of molten sulfur is too far beyond our reality. However, every middle class American can relate to the wretched ordeal that is a prolonged Saturday afternoon in an IKEA store.
I may not subscribe to Christianity’s views on sin and punishment, but I do believe that if you’re going to do something, you should do it right. So I’m offering my interpretation of eternal damnation to the righteous to use, free of charge. Adopt IKEA hell as our own and threaten the sheepish masses with it. It might actually be the end of sin as we know it.
You’re welcome. Amen.
Mr. Sunshine 