Free Prize Inside
One way our religious professionals keep us attached to their story is to promise a prize to those who stay.
Christianity’s promise is “Be faithful unto death, and I will give you a crown of life” (Revelation 2:10).
Islam promises that in heaven male believers get the companionship of full-breasted women of their own age (Qur’an 78:33). Women, on the other hand, only get one man with whom they will be satisfied.
My aim is to find myself in Dante’s first circle of hell. That’s where all the cool people are.
RR
Unlike Christianity and Islam, Judaism’s prize was originally this-worldly: seasonal rains, abundant harvests, and fat cows (Deuteronomy 11:13–15). Jewish religious leaders shifted to a prize offered in the afterlife when the people noticed that the weather wasn’t cooperating.
As it turns out, the best prize is one you collect after you die. That way, if it turns out there is no prize and your history was, in fact, just a story, you can’t complain to the elite or warn the masses. You’re dead.