The Earthly Paradise

Once a three horned demon appeared before a man and said to him,

“Be afraid mortal, for when you die your soul shall go to hell and there you shall be tormented for all time”.

“Show me proof of this”, asked the man.

And so the demon opened a door in the world and behind that door the man saw a bottomless pit filled with darkness and fire and at the bottom of the pit he saw a sea of human souls writing in an endless agony.

But the man said, “That is not real proof. Show me real proof”.

“What do you mean?”, asked the devil, “I have shown you hell, have I not; you have felt the heat of hell upon your face; you have smelled its brimstone and heard the screams of the souls who suffer within it. What more proof do you need that hell is real?”.

“Show me proof that I may show to other people”, said the man, “For proof is not what we see with our own eyes for that may be a dream; proof is what the whole world can see. Show me proof that will prove it to everyone and when everyone is convinced of hell’s existence then so will I be”.

But the devil could not do this, perhaps because he feared that proof of hells existence might make the whole world good or perhaps because there was no real hell except in the mind of man.

But then any way, the man awoke from his dream and he was not afraid.

“When someone proves to me that there is something beyond this life then I may fear and change my ways”, he said, “But until that day I shall presume that death is simply a sleep or a darkness without end and enjoy the life I have unto the full”.

Then he went outside of his house and the only fire he saw was the golden fire of the sun that, rather than tormenting the undead, was giving joy to the souls of the living; men and women smiling and bathing in its gentle warm rays and children laughing and playing.

“This is all the heaven that a man needs”, he said.

A demon voice whispered in his ear, “Then why should man be good without the rewards of heaven and the fear of hell?”.

“If man can see a heaven in this life then he would cherish it and in cherishing it he would be good and if goodness is his way into heaven then by seeing heaven in this life and cherishing it he would also be guaranteeing himself eternal bliss”, reasoned the man.

Then, hearing this, the devil stuck himself with his own three pronged fork and, bursting just like a bubble, disappeared and never bothered the man again.