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Tue 12 Dec, 2006 04:43 pm
A Parable of Heaven and Hell
There once was a devoted priest who wished to see both heaven and hell, and God gave way to his pleading.
The priest found himself before a door which bore no name. He trembled as he saw it open before him into a large room where all was prepared for a feast. There was a table, and at its centre a great dish of steaming food. The smell and the aroma inflamed the appetite.
Diners sat around the table with great spoons in their hands, yet they were shrieking with hunger in that terrible place. They tried to feed themselves, and gave up, cursing God, for the spoons that God had provided were so long that they could not reach their faces and get the food to their tongues. So they starved, while their dish of plenty lay amongst them. The priest knew their screams were the cries of hell, and as this understanding came, the door closed before him.
He shut his eyes in prayer and begged God to take him away from that terrible place. When he opened them again, he despaired, for the same door stood before him, the door that bore no name. Again it opened, and it gave onto the same room. Nothing had changed, and he was about to cry in horror. There was the table, and at its centre the steaming dish, and around it were the same people, and in their hands the same spoons.
Yet the shrieking had gone, and the cries and the curses had changed to blessings; and nothing had changed, yet everything. For with the same long spoons they reached to each other's mouths and fed one another, and they gave thanks to God.
And as the priest heard the blessings, the door closed. He fell to his knees, and he too blessed God who had shown him the nature of heaven and hell, and the chasm - a hair's breadth wide - that divides them.
Author unknown
Thanks for the story Solve!
Gives us a good perspective of both places!
Hell is worse than that. Here's just one verse that describes it-
(Ad-Dukhan, 43-49)
As for Heaven, it's of great beauty and delight-
They will enter Gardens of Eden, where they will be adorned with gold bracelets and pearls, and where their clothing will be of silk. They will say: "Praise be to Allah, Who has removed all sadness from us. Truly, our Lord is Ever-Forgiving, Ever-Thankful: He Who has lodged us, out of His favor, in the Abode of Permanence, where no weariness or fatigue affects us." (Surah Fatir, 33-35)
It was a freakin parable. Get over yourself.
I think it was a nice parable.
But why couldn't they just eat with their hands?
Jeez. Why didn't the fox in Aesop's "sour grapes" fable just get a ladder?
IT'S A PARABLE! THAT'S THE WAY IT'S WRITTEN!
It would only have taken one person in the first group to figure out that they could feed each other, or that they could simply grasp the spoons closer to the bowl, and the others would have followed suit. Were they all morons, or did God lobotomize them before inviting them to the feast?
Presumably the moral of this story is that stupidity must be punished. Since we make it too easy for idiots here on earth, God in his infinite (but apparently not enough to share with mankind) wisdom devises ingenious ways to torture them after death.
Terry wrote:It would only have taken one person in the first group to figure out that they could feed each other, or that they could simply grasp the spoons closer to the bowl, and the others would have followed suit. Were they all morons, or did God lobotomize them before inviting them to the feast?
Presumably the moral of this story is that stupidity must be punished. Since we make it too easy for idiots here on earth, God in his infinite (but apparently not enough to share with mankind) wisdom devises ingenious ways to torture them after death.
Well He already warned them of that Fateful Day beforehand and told them if they followed what He commanded them with and stopped what He forbid they would have eternal Paradise. But of course human by nature are ungrateful and they never take heed untill it's too late. They only have themselves to blame. He gave them the choice. A short life filled with hardships and temporary enjoyment, or an eternal life filled with bliss and everything the soul desires. Unfortunately most people choose the earlier when the latter is better and ever-lasting.
Terry wrote:Presumably the moral of this story is that stupidity must be punished.
Not at all. The moral of the story is that stupidity punishes itself. Intervention is entirely superfluous.
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