We're All Going to Hell!

Here I am, contemplating which religion I should choose. You can make fun of how I look all you want, but keep in mind that my god will smite the hell out of you.

One of the eternal questions that has been plaguing all of mankind since at least 1972 has been "where do we go when we die?" Some people speculate that there's a place where all the good people go and a place where all the bad people go, which I think is blatantly racist and should probably be overturned in the Supreme Court. Other people claim that once we die we become alive again except we're now in a different person's body. I guess that means our souls are like zombies and the only way you can stop us from coming back to life is to shoot our soul in the head or drive a wooden stake through our soul's heart. Let's face it; nobody knows what happens to us when we die. Early death-related experiments in the 1800's, a time when doctors believed every medical disease could be cured by adhering leeches to a person's face, were extremely unsuccessful. Doctor Heldrich Von Mayvein was one of the first scientists who attempted to solve this puzzle. He stapled a note that read "WHERE ARE YOU NOW?" with a long blank fill-in box below to his apprentice's face, and then proceeded to beat him to death with a rake. Unfortunately his apprentice's soul never filled out the questionnaire, causing this mystery to continue to remain a mystery.

Religion has tried to answer this question by requesting donations from its members and declaring war on other religions, but let's face it: there are thousands of religions out there. What if we choose the wrong religion and we're punished for all eternity by being forced to watch reruns of "Mama's Family"? In this trying day and age of fast food, Bingo, and Scotch tape, it's not easy to find answers in one convenient place. They certainly aren't in my bathroom because I just came from there and if they were somewhere in that room I would've definitely seen them, unless they were under the sink or in the pipes, which is a definitely possibility in this day and age of fast food, Bingo, and Scotch tape. With this perplexing question of eternity and filthy bathrooms in mind, your friends here at Something Awful have assembled a list of the most popular religions and have provided a brief summary of each, as well as the chance of you being tormented eternally for believing in that religion and being a real horse's ass.

CHOOSE YOUR OWN RELIGION

Religion Name: Christianity

Chance You'll Be Tormented For All Eternity For Screwing Up: 95%

Famous People of This Religion: Sir Isaac Newton (invented gravity), Blaise Pascal (invented PASCAL), those fat white guys with puffy red cheeks who are always yelling on network TV.

Brief Description: Christians believe in an old book called "The Bible" which can be found in the sock drawer of many motels across America. The Bible is so old that if you went out and looked for the original copy, you would probably never find it (even if you looked on Amazon.com). This book is a collection of crazy stories, fanmail sent into Jesus by people in his club, and the overall theme that Jesus was a great guy and all of us, by comparison, are pathetic jerks. Christians believe that Jesus is God's son and therefore God has a magic penis because he somehow caused a virgin woman gave birth to Jesus. This is kind of a scary thought, which is why many Christian leaders hate homosexuals and refuse to talk about God's penis, even in the Confessional Booth.

This game is available for BOTH Windows AND Mac! That's how powerful Jesus and God are!

This religion is essentially a spinoff of Judaism, much like how that one show about the black kids in college was a spinoff of "The Cosby Show." Christians believe that God is the most powerful and ultimate being in the whole universe, even stronger than Andre the Giant and Mr. T combined. However, Christians also think that Jesus was some powerful and ultimate being even though he was God's son and only got his powers because of his dad, George Bush Sr. Er, I mean God, sorry. Jesus used his powers to smite Egyptians and to torment people who believed in Him and God. He would often engage in conversations like the following, which is listed in Matthew 182:28:129.B.1i82 Section 15:

JESUS: "Do you believe in Myself and My Holy Father?"
DIRT FARMER: "Oh yes Jesus, my family and I worship You all the time!"
JESUS: "Excellent. I will now kill your family and give you the plague and make all your crops die and then you can reflect on how much you love Us."
DIRT FARMER: (Happy) "Praise Jesus!"

That was only in the Old Testament though, which is like "Bible: Episode I." The Old Testament was really cool and it featured such hits as the Book of Ezekiel, which I believe was about Martians or maybe time travel. In the New Testament, Jesus turned into a real pansy and didn't do much smiting. He just walked around and said nice things to people until a group of Roman soccer hooligans killed him.

Then there's some magic ghost called "The Holy Spirit" which flies around and shoots lightning or something. So essentially, Christians believe in a three-headed beast composed of God, His son, and a ghost, which rule over everything and solve mysteries in their free time.

Like any good religion, Christians tend to believe that essentially anything you do will cause you to go to hell. Hell is a painful and horrible place like Detroit only with less crime. By default, we're all going to hell because Jesus got killed for our sins, even though most of us didn't ask Him to. I know I didn't. So to make it up to Him, His Father, and the Holy Lightning Ghost Spirit, we must do a bunch of boring and repetitive crap all the time and torture ourselves out of guilt for Jesus. There are certain days when we're supposed to eat Holy crackers and Holy wine (Communion) and days when we're supposed to be miserable and think about how we'll never be able to amount to 1% of Jesus and how we're probably all going to hell (every day). If you don't dip your kid into a pool of water after he's born, he will go to hell and you probably will as well. If you have sex before marriage, you and your significant other and your kids will go to hell. If you don't Anoint the Sick then you'll go to hell. I don't even know what Anointing the Sick consists of. I think you have to go out on weekends and give Advil to lepers. I'm not sure where the lepers in my city hang out. Maybe in the trailer park that has the three broken 7-Up machines in front.

Summary: Although there are three major players in this religion, there is still a very high chance that you'll be punished for all eternity. Quantity certainly does not equal quality, except I think that the more money you donate to the Christian church, the better chance you'll have at getting into Heaven. Poor people and minorities are not welcome.

Religion Name: Orthodox Judaism

Chance You'll Be Tormented For All Eternity For Screwing Up: 98%

Famous People of This Religion: Robert J. Avrech (helped Brian De Palma make crappy movies), Dr. Laura Schlessinger (woman who yells at pregnant white trash over the phone), most of the people from the smash hit Melanie Griffith movie, "A Stranger Among Us."

These two Orthodox Jews are haggling over the price of some take out Chinese food and weeds.

Brief Description: It's hard to summarize all Orthodox Judaism groups because there are about 100,000 of them and they keep growing by the minute. While they disagree with a bunch of major policies (Zionism, cooperation with non-Orthodox Jews, in what sinister ways they can rule the world and control all the money and gold and diamonds and cubic zirconium), they all agree that they should dress really funny and be very comical. I'm poking fun at Orthodox Jews because I'm fairly sure that it's against all their laws to use or even look at the Internet, so I'm relatively safe from getting flame mail from "supah_ortho_jew19029@aol.com." In order to distinguish themselves from the rest of the non-Orthodox Judaism population, these religious fellows have adopted a lifestyle that many of us find to be very silly, although I'm fairly sure they don't feel the same way. This includes:

Prohibiting women from having their arms or legs exposed because this promotes unclean thoughts. Since women aren't allowed to work (except in the kitchen and birthing room), they are given complimentary parkas and scuba diving suits to hide all their appendages.
Forcing all members to have huge beards and sidebrows. If you are unable to grow a long beard, you are given an Abraham Lincoln fake beard and are required to wear it until you die, at which point it is passed on to your heir.
Requiring all members to wear a lot of black, silly hats, and demanding they never smile (even if they hear a very funny Orthodox Jew joke). They are kind of like goths in this way, only without the Geocities "dark poetry" webpages.

Orthodox Jews spend all day studying the Torah, observing Orthodox Jewish law (which consists of over 150,000 different rules), and brushing up on various other required reading material. When they are not studying, they are either sleeping or not talking to their wives. Their ancient Jewish Law is written in Hebrew, a language which looks like the symbols from Ultima IV only they don't shoot large fireballs (In Vas Flam). Orthodox Jews separate themselves from the rest of society by living in large groups that have their own secret stores and secret codes and secret handshakes. Another trademark of this religion is their really silly music which sounds like a cross between the polka and a Mexican Mariachi band on crank. If there is ever a major crime in the Orthodox Judaism community, they will not let outsiders come in to solve it unless they slowly but surely adopt their principles and ideals, a process which takes roughly 19 years to accomplish.

Summary: While this religion certainly has its positive points (secretly ruling the world and all its monetary reserves), it does contain some very defining negative aspects (everything else). Unless you enjoy a lot of facial hair and spending 19 hours a day in a musty library full of old books, you should probably skip this one.

Religion Name: Islam

Chance You'll Be Tormented For All Eternity For Screwing Up: 71%

Famous People of This Religion: Tupac Shakoor (drug-using rapper who was shot to death), Mohammed Ali (badass boxer), many people who have blown themselves up with bombs to prove how much they enjoy Islam.

Haha, the book about Louis Farrakhan is written by Mr. White! Haha, white! Get it? Nevermind.

Brief Description: The basic belief of Islam is that there is just one important God, not multiple weird things like Christians or anybody who really liked the Three Stooges. While they share a common bond with Jews, the Muslims and Jewish people really hate each other for many vague reasons. I think the primary cause is because the Jews think The Torah is the best book in the world, whereas the Muslims think the Koran is the best book in the world. It's like those people who argue on forums about the Playstation 2 being better than the X-Box, except these people will stab each other to death just to prove their point. They feel that Jesus, who was a lot like Moses and Muhammad, was trying to encourage the Jews to adopt his policies regarding how they should act, but the Jews denounced him and screwed up big time. As a result, the Koran wisely advises all Muslims to kill non-Muslims like Jews, Christians, Mormons, plumbers, Moon People, and Big Bird. This "killing" thing really causes a rift in the whole inter-religion community thing.

Muslims also have a belief system which they feel is more based in science, not some nonsense that a traveling Son of God talked about when he was smiting people and forcing others to kill goats and smear the blood on their doors to prove how much they loved Him. For example, the Koran supports the "Big Bang" theory, as shown in this except from the Koran:

[Quran 21.30] Do not those who disbelieve see that the heavens and the earth were meshed together but We have torn them apart? And then We have made of water everything living? Would they still not believe? Also, kill the Jews.

The Koran is the "Big Book O' Rules" for the Muslims, the pure, untainted, 100% pulp-free version of the Bible as was told to Prophet Muhammad. They feel the Bible is kind of messed up and wrong in some parts, like when Paul sent Jesus some contradictory fan messages to his website, talking about "hearing sound but not seeing light," which he later changed to "not hearing sound but seeing light." This, therefore, completely invalidates the Bible and makes the Koran #1 on the New York Times Bestseller List. God apparently said some stuff to his Prophets, guys like Noah and Moses (the two people who collaborated to build the Ark), but what he told them was kind of wrong or something. Maybe God was loaded when he was chatting with them. Regardless, the only person who really knows the truth about everything was Prophet Muhammad, who was smart enough to record God's teachings on tape cassette. The cassettes are no longer available, but copy-proof CDs are available through BMG Entertainment.

Another fundamental feature of Islam is throwing rocks at people. If you break any one of their strict laws, you will be executed by having rocks thrown at you until either you die or they run out of rocks. The Shari`ah, which was not an alien race in Star Trek, recommends harsh penalties for anybody convicted of murder, personal injury, theft, kissing in public, thinking about the color pink, double-parking, or failing to jump over the flaming barrels in Donkey Kong. These punishments include public stonings, crucifixion, chopping off a hand or foot, or banishing the criminal to a post-apocalyptic desert area where they must fight radioactive mutants and raiders in dune buggies. Women are also required to wear an intricate series of holy towels and scarves so no male can differentiate them from a pile of moving rugs.

Summary: Although there is a better chance of you ending up in Heaven, there's also a better chance of you being murdered to death for really trivial crimes such as spitting in public after arguing with the umpire's call.

MISCELLANEOUS OTHER RELIGIONS

Religion Name: Hinduism
Brief Description: There are a whole bunch of Gods and you can pretty much do whatever you want as long as you wear the right clothing. There are a lot of Hindus in India, but not quite as many in Indiana. Oh yeah, there's also that thing with the red dot on your head which makes it look like a SWAT team has you targeted in their laser scope.

Religion Name: Buddhism
Brief Description: Just chill man, and don't like freak out about anything dude. It's bad karma man, and you just need to cool out unless you want to be reincarnated as a sloth or filthy anteater. If you're a really good Buddhist, you'll reach Nirvana, which is a large atrium in Canada that houses the ghost of Raoul Julia.

Religion Name: Scientology
Brief Description: Aliens traveled to our planet and got blown up, forcing their spirits to roam around and haunt us because their leader is trapped deep inside a volcano, and the only way we can get rid of them is by understanding this idea. The movie "Final Fantasy" was based off this concept, although the estate of L. Ron "Ronny" Hubbard has not sued Square Inc. Yet.

Well that's all the main ones I care to list at this point, and since I'm fairly sure my flame mail will increase exponentially with the number of religions I list, I think I'll just stop right now. I hope this guide has helped you find the "correct" religion so you won't end up in hell or even worse, Detroit. May God / Jesus / Allah / Xenu / Alan Thicke have mercy on your souls!

Big Fat New Section!

Howdy folks, Scott Delbango here. Don't be fooled by my greeting, I'm not a cowboy! I'm just a friendly SA staffer here to inform you of our new section, The Goldmine! To create awareness of our amazingly fantastical forums, we've decided to showcase highlights from some of the funnier threads each week.

This week's thread was about make believe products - ones so make believe that they don't even exist! So what are you waiting for? GO READ NOW!

– Rich "Lowtax" Kyanka (@TwitterHasBannedAllMyAccountsEver)