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Paul Bryant's Reviews > The Varieties of Religious Experience
The Varieties of Religious Experience
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I had an unusually long conversation with my daughter Georgia (also now a Goodreader) once when she was seven years old (she's now 16 going on 17, just like in the song) and the matter of eschatology came up, so I asked her directly - well, what does happen when you die? So she laid out what she thinks happens, and I was so taken by the stuff she came out with that I wrote it down. As it's a variety of religious experience I thought it appropriate to include here.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DIE
Heaven has different parts to it. In one part there are monsters, but they're good. In another part they're like orcs but they're good. In the third part there are dinosaurs, and they're bad.
Jesus is not in heaven. He is above heaven. He was a normal man but he went on the cross and died and he became magic. He was alive again and turned into an angel. Now he can listen to anyone on the earth just by thinking of their name.
When people die they all go to heaven. It could be the good part or the bad part. When you die you turn into a zombie, but then quite quickly you turn into a skeleton and that's when you go to heaven. The
skeletons in heaven can't see the Earth at all, but to the good orcs Earth appears like the brightest star in the sky. But they have to look down to see it, because they are all upside down.
If you are cremated your ashes float up and turn into your soul. It goes up into a purple porthole. It meets a sorter who asks you what age you want to be and that's what you stay at from then on. In this world everything is slightly see-through. You only spend 1000 years here and then you go to the graveyard and sleep. But one day in each 10 years you come alive again. But this world is not heaven so jesus is not there. The bad people who die become good. For five years out of 1000 they are punished in a house sized prison cell by having to eat all the food they really hate and listen to all the music they really hate.
There is a feather of truth and a catch up course, but I can't remember what they are for.
People have gone into space in rockets but they haven't seen heaven because it is very small.
When animals die, if it's on concrete they fade away and become invisible. If it's on soil, they sink bit by bit into the earth and they become animal zombies. Our hamster Lucy became an animal zombie, but all animal zombies are good, not bad.
Note : don't blame me for any of this, I never allowed her to watch any zombie films intil she was 12! I don't know where she's got any of this stuff apart from orcs.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DIE
Heaven has different parts to it. In one part there are monsters, but they're good. In another part they're like orcs but they're good. In the third part there are dinosaurs, and they're bad.
Jesus is not in heaven. He is above heaven. He was a normal man but he went on the cross and died and he became magic. He was alive again and turned into an angel. Now he can listen to anyone on the earth just by thinking of their name.
When people die they all go to heaven. It could be the good part or the bad part. When you die you turn into a zombie, but then quite quickly you turn into a skeleton and that's when you go to heaven. The
skeletons in heaven can't see the Earth at all, but to the good orcs Earth appears like the brightest star in the sky. But they have to look down to see it, because they are all upside down.
If you are cremated your ashes float up and turn into your soul. It goes up into a purple porthole. It meets a sorter who asks you what age you want to be and that's what you stay at from then on. In this world everything is slightly see-through. You only spend 1000 years here and then you go to the graveyard and sleep. But one day in each 10 years you come alive again. But this world is not heaven so jesus is not there. The bad people who die become good. For five years out of 1000 they are punished in a house sized prison cell by having to eat all the food they really hate and listen to all the music they really hate.
There is a feather of truth and a catch up course, but I can't remember what they are for.
People have gone into space in rockets but they haven't seen heaven because it is very small.
When animals die, if it's on concrete they fade away and become invisible. If it's on soil, they sink bit by bit into the earth and they become animal zombies. Our hamster Lucy became an animal zombie, but all animal zombies are good, not bad.
Note : don't blame me for any of this, I never allowed her to watch any zombie films intil she was 12! I don't know where she's got any of this stuff apart from orcs.
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Reading Progress
October 4, 2007
– Shelved
February 9, 2016
– Shelved as:
assorted-rants-about-stuff
February 9, 2016
– Shelved as:
to-read-nonfiction
October 8, 2017
– Shelved as:
some-random-codedy-stuff
October 8, 2017
– Shelved as:
some-random-comedy-stuff
July 27, 2018
– Shelved as:
to-not-read-ever
January 18, 2019
– Shelved as:
probably-never
February 27, 2023
– Shelved as:
reviews-of-books-i-didnt-read
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Charissa
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Dec 18, 2007 04:01PM
Georgia's Heaven reminds me of The Little Prince. Absolutely adorable. I think now when people ask me what religion I am I will say I am a Georgian.
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I think I am going to share that with my kids (9yr & 12yrs.) Now I *have* watched zombie movies with my boys and we love them. However, this zombie is not that zombie and I know my boys will immediately have a feel or what Miss Georgia has described. Thank you both.
Paul, please make this into either a lovely, expensive, illustrated children's book or a weird new Hollywood religious cult, whichever you think will be more lucrative.You are going to be rich, rich, RICH! And the best thing about eleven-year-olds is, they know *nothing* about the legal system, and no idea how to hire a lawyer! Actually, it may be be different in England, but if Dickens is any indication it isn't and you basically own your daughter and proprietary rights to every single thought she has until age eighteen so MILK IT while you can!!!
A couple of years after that I re-interviewed Georgia about her theology to see if her ideas had changed and wow, they really had. So I wrote it all down again. Do you want to know the updated version?
Yes, I think we all do...
Well, I looked, and I couldn't find it, like a man seeking an ancient manuscript. Now I think i imagined it, the Revised Version, the lost Codex Georgiatticus.
Some peasant will dig this up years into the future and will be using the Georgist Gospels as a cocktail napkin when dismayed archeologists arrive at the site where the Bryantian tower of books and paper scraps once stood....And they will sigh in wonder when they recall the legends of Paul's cluttered shelves:
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
Level sands of Nottingham stretch far away.
It feels premature. But only slightly.
Now that you're a Legend, Paul, you better watch for zombievampires as you're out hunting deer in the empty streets of NYC. I'm just sayin.
Some scholars are convinced that vampires figured prominently into the eschatology outlined in the Codex Georgiatticus, while others believe this is speculative crap, insisting that the mysteries of this lost text cannot be known. There is also a secretive band of followers which has formed a messianic cult around the shadowy figure of Will Smith. Their ritual practices are unknown, but generally understood to be deeply bizarre and probably involve gross sex stuff or weird yoga poses or the chanting of asinine late-1980s rap lyrics, or something like that.
I think I will be a Georgian also!!(keep looking for the update I always like the New Testament parts the best)!
this is brilliant. i want to letter/illustrate it as a series of pieces. i really love this text.
I'll let you know when/if the idea ever moves out of dream & into reality.
I'm prepared to provide (unsolicited) assistance with that reality... Encouragement, sketches, supplies, etc.
Tom Hanks' people are scouring the internet for your likeness, before he commits to the film version of the search for the Codex Georgiatticus.My 12 and 15 year old daughters still haven't progressed from scatology and farts to eschatology.
Maybe that's why Tom Hanks wants to play you and not me.
This is cute and funny and everything, but it's a bit annoying that the top review is not a review and has nothing to do with the book in question…
For that I apologise, and suggest you refer to the next review down. But you have to admit that Georgia's theology is a variety of religious experience.
That's all right, having now seen your take-down of American Psycho, I'll forgive you anything.
I just find this amazing. The Microscopic Heaven.
This is rockin' and awesome. Your daughter is a wise woman.
thanks Alex.... fortunately she hasn't insisted on this theology in adult life.
Love her take, but you really should read the book. Especially before writing a “review”???
I think you're right - back in the early days of GR when this was written a few of us treated the idea of reviewing a book somewhat more lightheartedly or playfully than the more earnest goodreader would. I could point you to some of my early "reviews" which have absolutely nothing to do with the book in question. But I think I conform a lot more these days. It was fun, though.
Oh dear, have I been slagging off one of your favourites again?
Yes, it's much better to be you than to be me.
You know you ought to review books yourself, then I could add some comments of my own.
wow, you wrote 14 reviews! And some of them over two paragraphs long... You know, that's 14 more than some people. And size isn't everything. Well done.
Dang. Weird , Hostile MAGA/Incel Troll: Goodreads Edition
I think it’s because you were mean to DFW because that guy’s sainted memory doesn’t get enough love in this culture.
It's true, he is shamefully overlooked. But I thought my 3 star review of The Pale King was pretty positive. Just.... not positive enough, for some. These DFW fanboys are unforgiving. You have to love DFW but you have to love him in the right way.
well, how about that, hold the front page, we can agree about The Pale King. Hey, you might even enjoy my review. It's longer than all your 14 put together - I hasten to add - that doesn't make it any better though!https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
