...in a nutshell

"Have you heard the good news?"

"What news is that?"

"I'm selling tickets to heaven."

"Oh yeah? What's heaven?"

"It is a place you can go when you die. It is wonderful, and it is so gol' durned rich they use gold to pave the streets instead of asphalt."

"Wow! Their congress must have passed the infrastructure bill. I wouldn't mind living in a place like that. But I bet the glare on those roads is terrible. How much are tickets?"

"You only have to adopt our culture for life. Oh, and give our leader ten percent of your paycheck for life. Oh. And pitch in to pay the bills once or twice a week. And recruit. The more recruits you bring to our culture, the richer you will be in heaven. Oh. And you take a bath in figurative blood and all the bad stuff you did goes away. Oh. And if you don't join our culture you will burn in a fire for all of eternity because God loves you so much.

"No thanks, dude. I'll stick with reincarnation. It is free and I keep my culture."

Reviews

[barleygirl]

This is great! I applaud you for having the audacity to write a spoof on the price of salvation. I've got to share this with a friend of mine who calls himself atheist due to religion overkill as a kid. You are most clever in picking this approach & you craft it with excellent comic pacing for a compelling read (((HUGS)))

[Corset]

too funny and so true, there is always the one who will try to sell ice to Eskimos. There is a theory that reincarnation happens when a soul has not met its intended moral goals/lessons so it gets sent back to do it over until a soul gets it right enough to dip his toe in the golden pond. lol
According to the astrologers though there are golden galaxies in the midst of the veins that make up the entire infrastructure of our local Universe.( https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=3yfm1oT5&id=7499A6E5AA11CF4DEECB13BFD07CB84108E4D13C&thid=OIP.3yfm1oT5JUqYAU2NVQxZkgHaEK&mediaurl=https%3a%2f%2f2.bp.blogspot.com%2f-knMIXnmfxOA%2fV478x8EpvCI%2fAAAAAAAAA30%2fcDCV3qOzGKgfPsFO7bu4gAm1aDZlJwZyACLcB%2fs1600%2fmaxresdefault.jpg&cdnurl=https%3a%2f%2fth.bing.com%2fth%2fid%2fR.df27e6d684f9254a98014d8d550c5992%3frik%3dPNHkCEG4fNC%252fEw%26pid%3dImgRaw%26r%3d0&exph=900&expw=1600&q=nasa%2c+map+of+universe&simid=608052216904230118&FORM=IRPRST&ck=58C4D373DD81888D5259E1678F7C32FD&selectedIndex=0&idpp=overlayview&ajaxhist=0&ajaxserp=0 course) , it looks A LOT like the map of the world wide web :P (https://image.slidesharecdn.com/worldwidewebppt-181127051310/95/world-wide-web-ppt-12-638.jpg?cb=1543295769)

[Carlos Lorenzo Estrada]

Bravo this was a biting piece of satire that was a joy to read. Thank you for sharing this with us.