Losing My Religion NEW!

Posted By:	The Boneman
Posted On:	Sun Jun 10th, 2007

Recently Pope Benedict XVI - the leader of the Catholic church - made a rather remarkable move. He decided to get rid of Limbo. Poof, it's gone, just like that - no longer exists. No big deal really - it just means that over a billion people will have to change what they believe about life after death. I think the Pope is essentially saying that Limbo was a silly notion all along and frankly he's sick of having to pretend such a ridiculous place really exists. After all, it's not mentioned anywhere in the Bible and on top of that it shares it's name with the pagan practice of getting drunk off your ass and dancing underneath a stick. In any case, the Holy robed one decided to cut Limbo Loose. Hmm.

Though I am not myself a member of the worlds largest organized religion, I always liked Limbo. George Carlin used to goof on it back in the day. And how long's it been since we lost Pluto? I'm not sure I'm comfortable with this trend. I'm not suggesting that Pluto and Limbo are the most significant places in the cosmos, but hey – I grew up with 'em - I kinda hate to see them go. Anyway, if you'll bear with me here, unless I'm mistaken, I believe Limbo is a place, somewhere between heaven and hell, where babies go if they happen to die before getting baptized. And to be honest, I really have no idea what happens to them once they get there. If there's some sort of waiting period, or if they're stuck there with nothing but a few angels to rattle some car keys once in a while? Maybe change their diaper before it falls off by itself. I mean I'm sure we'd all like to believe in a heaven that's poop-free, but Limbo? I guess we'll never know whether or not it was wise to watch where you crawled upon the lawns of Limbo.

I suppose I can see why the Pope might want to cancel Limbo, but still, would it have killed him to just hang onto it for sentimental reasons. Or just to prevent his billions of followers from looking stupid for believing in a place that, what? never really existed, or just went out of business. I'm sure to countless people Limbo is every bit as real as the Vatican. It's been around for a long time and I have to say I was kind of surprised that there wasn't more of a hew and cry raised over this sudden Limbo Elimination. Maybe they were just too embarrassed to speak up. Still though, if I were Catholic and circumstances were such that I believed I had a child there, and I sat down to breakfast 'wheedle dee dee' took a glance at the paper and there's a giant "Limbo Liquidation sale" looking back at me - I'm pretty sure that might put me off my scrambled eggs. I'd wanna make a couple phone calls or something.

I don't know that there's any reason for me to overreact, obviously it's not such an earth-shattering deal. It's not like the "Jews denying the existence of Christ" kind of big deal. It's more along the lines of the "gays denying the existence of George Michael." Talk about "how low can you go?" As most of us are aware, few religions share identical dogma with regard to where our souls end up after we've . . . bought the farm, kicked the bucket, hit the happy hunting ground. The vast majority, however, adhere to the view that we don't just lay there tits up, pushing up the daisies, taking a dirt nap. Yea verily depending upon your given faith and according to what sort of soul you've managed to dredge out of this wicked old world, you're either going some place better, worse or coming back for an encore, perhaps as a dung beetle or Shirley Maclaine.

The beauty and/or bane of the human condition is, believe what we will, nobody actually knows what the hell the deal "really" is. There's nothing much to go on beyond faith. Which is, of course, where religion enters the picture. To one degree or another every religion from Pagan to Puritan sprang forth to offer an explanation as to what the hell is going on. The Existential Big 3 - "Where did we come from?" "Why are we here?" "Where are we going?" And to this day, this tripartite plight continues to offer the greatest business opportunity to ever come down the pike. ("No – it's not a pyramid scheme, it's multi-level marketing).

Alas, lo my absence has been long, and my flock hath dwindled big time, we've at long last gathered again to discuss "Limbo" and the sad little "going out of business," sign at the front gates. You see, in the formative days of Catholicism, Heaven, Hell and even Purgatory were a cinch, shoe-ins, this much was a no-brainer to be sure. However, a troublesome Catch 22 arose as to the disposition of babies who died before they could be baptized? [Italian dialect] "It's not like we can cast the poor little tikes into Purgatory, hell it's not their fault. But on the other hand we're gonna walk straight into a shit-storm if we just let ‘em right back into heaven, am I right? The technicalities are liable to be a nightmare. Can you imagine the buttload of flack we'd catch from Calvin and his pack of pinch-faces. You don't know what hell 'is' until you've spent an hour with that pious piece of sheeploaf - Yeesh.

Anyway, the thing is, we need to come up with another place - at least for now. Not as fancy as heaven – but certainly not as terrible as Hell - where we can squirrel away these babies (God rest their souls) Y'know - until we can sort out all the details. Don't look at me like that, they're babies f'cryin' out loud, whadda they know? They're fat, dumb and happy – s'long as they got a bottle and warm place to sleep . . . they're good? WHO SAID THAT? Rizzo? Keep your mouth shut. You're one to talk you drunken smartass mook, I oughtta. Anyway, alright so we're t'gether on this, then? Very good. Oh uh, before y'go - we're gonna need a name for this place, so start shootin' me some ideas." "I got it boss, how ‘bout 'Babia?'" "That's not bad, but it sounds too much like 'labia' – if we're gonna sell this, we need something good - that no one will make fun of y'know? Come on let's knock this out and go home, Keep ‘em comin. . ." "Hey boss, how about we call it Limbo!?" "Rizzo, I'm warnin' ya, I'll come over there! I will come over there!"

I wonder what exactly has to happen in order to get rid of a place like limbo. I picture them sending up a couple no-nonsense Irish Nuns to clear the place out. "Alright, yuz listen up! Now, there's no need to go getting' you're PJ's in a jam, but the facts is - we're closin' the place down. There there now, everything's alright! Stop your bawlin', like I say there no reason to go loadin your diapers with dumplins, because you're all going to heaven. Every last one of ya, so put a wiggle on it. Don't just sit there like a buncha stunned monkeys, y'wanna go to heaven, or spend the rest of yer days mumbly-fartin' around this stinky old dump? So no dawdlers, I don't need to remind any of ya who takes the hindmost (using her index fingers for horns and capering about in a stiff danse macabre)– so get those hinders in gear. Y'don't wanna be caught nappin' when old scratch comes snappin' up the scraps. If it were ‘my' diaper, you can bet your sweet binky, I'd have it first in line." That's the ticket - just follow sister Catherine and she'll show you around the new nursery. I think it's safe to say you'll notice a bit of an improvement (stomping hard on a cockroach and dusting her hands off with two smart slaps). Done and done.

You have to wonder if other religions might not jump on the bandwagon and start sloughing off antiquated doctrine. It's been rumored that the Church of Scientology is considering deleting the psychic plane known as "Bimbo" from it's theological landscape. Always a great one for mixing Religion with Science Fiction, L Ron Hubbard revealed the existence of Bimbo during a period in the 60s when he became inordinately obsessed with the sci-fi film Barbarella. Bimbo was to be the glorious realm where Hubbard would have sects with Jane Fonda. Thus "Bimbo" the place remains to this day - but, as I've suggested, it may be on thin ice. In fact Tom Cruise has been quoted as saying that the majority of upper level OT's would like to bail on "Bimbo." Cruise joked with the press and concluded his immpromptu remarks by riffing on his famous line from Risky Business "Sometimes you just gotta say "what the f**k, was he thinking?"