What’s really awaiting jihadis in heaven?
Re: “Martyrs may be dismayed to find themselves in hell,” Have Your Say, yesterday.
A Bangkok Atheist does well to mock the notion of the 72 virgins in Islam. I have studied this topic, and believe that they are all wizened old hags in their 90s, wrinkled and toothless, with withered dugs hanging down to their knees and insatiable sexual appetites born of their long virginity. They have been placed in paradise, not as a reward for robust young jihadis, who fantasise that they will all be young, beautiful, and crafted along the lines of the youthful Angelina Jolie, but as a reward for their own prolonged chastity. That unhappy state occurred because, even as youths, they were so preternaturally ugly that even the most lustful male refused to go near them. Imagine the dismay of the average jihadi when he finds out that he will be expected to service 72 insatiable crones as often as they wish. It would indeed be hell for him.
There is a theological problem here, because these virgins must remain such in perpetuity, even after the jihadis have wreaked their evil way with them. Hence the necessity for a recycling mechanism.
There are only 72 old virgins for each jihadi. There are 365 days in a year. Assuming that the jihadi is an abstemious lad who will devirginate only one superannuated virgin a day, that leaves 293 days in the year that they will go unsated. So the used-up virgins will have to be recycled, presumably with infinitely renewable hymens. The whole scenario provides rich food for speculation.
On a slightly different topic, A Bangkok Atheist’s letter points up one of the problems with atheism. It’s boring. Once you’ve made your point that there’s nothing out there – nothing, nada, zero, zilch, mai mee arai – there’s nothing to talk about. All you can do is make fun of religion. That’s easy to do, but it makes you dependent on religion for anything worth talking about.
Atheism is a negative, no-fun, no-path to nowhere. To make itself even slightly interesting, it has to elevate mortal beings to quasi-divine status. This subverts its very purpose. It is also what the late, unlamented, atheistic Soviet Union had to do. To make its atheism ideologically interesting, it had to deify its major icons, Marx, Lenin, and Stalin: ugly guys with facial hair. You want to worship the Communist Trinity? Be my guest.
Ye Olde Theologian
