Tim's latest post reminds me why I love reading these crazy, out-there blogs. He discusses the devil's most ingeniously deceptive plot ever: To create a fake apocalypse, followed by a fake Heaven to keep all the Christians from discovering the true God. Especially relevant in light of some of the recent discussion we've had about paradise.

Imagine if you will then the following scenario - the Mock Apocalypse, the Mockalypse: The Devil causes events on earth to come to pass which match the prophetic visions of the Book of Revelation. The Devil's worst enemies are ardent Christians -- and these are precisely the people who are the most drawn into the game the Devil is playing.

The notion of the Rapture becomes extremely popular, and the Devil uses this to his advantage. He sets up a kind of "holding cell" in one of the lower astral realms. And he engineers a full-scale Rapture Event with all the bells and whistles. He singles out the people who are the most serious Christians, and sucks them right out of their clothes cars and houses, floating them up into his diabolical prison. He then has killed two birds with one stone: gotten rid of his worst enemies, and is using their life-essence to power his infernal machinations.

Meanwhile, the world below is plunged into absolute chaos. Plagues are unleashed. Various things turn to blood. Annoying songs are repeated endlessly on the radio. The devil feeds on the suffering and grows more and more powerful as he cycles through all the nastiest events described for the Apocalypse. And then when things can't get any worse, he stages an elaborate (but fake) defeat at the hands of a phony Second Coming of Christ, played by one of his actor friends.

After that is ushered in a new Golden Age of peace and prosperity, a Paradise on Earth. By this time everybody knows the Bible events were true, because they lived through them word for word (well, most people are probably dead by now, actually). So they more or less unflinchingly accept this Paradise as the Coming of God's Heavenly Kingdom on Earth. They even get to sit at the feet of God's throne and worship Him, because God has come down to live amongst the people in the New Jerusalem.

Except... it's all a sham. God is the Devil. The New Jerusalem is another prison illusion. But that doesn't matter, because everybody forgot. People are content with what they've got, and happy the suffering is over. Maybe the Devil even treats them really well, really does provide for them. Maybe he finally realizes that you really do catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.

But something happens. One day somebody realizes something isn't quite right. They catch a glimpse of a cloven hoof under a divine garment. And something sparks in their memory. An old story they've mostly forgotten. They tell a friend to see if they can remember anything more. That night the friend dreams of another God -- a god different and above the one who sits on the thrown in the New Jerusalem. The friends tell their friends, and the circle widens. Soon, there is a small sect teaching that God isn't actually God, that he's the devil, and that this is all an illusion. Satan-in-disguise then begins a systematic persecution and annihilation of this tiny sect.

But the sect has help. The Christians who were taken up in the original Rapture begin to come back to Earth to aid them. Though they long ago lost their earthly bodies, they begin to beam messages down to the members of the secret sect. Some even begin to simultaneously incarnate into the bodies and minds of the citizens of New Jerusalem. The cycle begins again...

Beautiful. It really leads one to think about exactly what "true" paradise might consist of. Is it a world with no suffering and no pain, or would such a world be inexplicably hollow and incomplete, waiting for that "spark" in our memory to help us rediscover it? What if we somehow found our way to true paradise, only to realize that all the flaws and the suffering never really had anything to do with the world outside us, but were instead intrinsic aspects of our human nature; something "paradise" can never change without completely altering the essence of who we are? Would we still want paradise if it would effectively mean the death of the present versions of "you" and "me"? Could we even exist as conscious beings if we are stripped from the context of the (flawed) world around us?

These are the questions I love to ponder.