Asmireen
©2024 by Jonathan Scott
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Chapter 27 - My Struggle - 9
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I have a question for you.
How much is infinity? How many little one plus ones would you have to add up in order to get there? The answer to this is, of course, infinity, right? Does infinity really exist though, or is it just a number that's so large that none of us have ever bothered to count up to it?
I mean, everyone says that the number of grains of sand on a beach is infinite. But it isn't, not really. It's just that no one has ever bothered to count them. So, we invented the word "infinity" to excuse our laziness. They also like to use the number of stars in the sky as a good representation of the number infinity. But, this also is not true. We don't know how many stars there are, simply because we do not have the means to see farther than there are stars. Therefore, we use the word "infinity" in this instance to excuse our technological ignorance.
Therefore, my question to you is this. Does anything infinite really exist? Does it? I know this doesn't sound like a very important question, but in the case of Papa Voice, it is a matter of utmost dire import to myself.
If Papa Voice literally is infinitely powerful then I stand no chance whatsoever of defeating Him no matter how many souls I consume. But, as I hope, if His "infinity" really is nothing but a mere exaggeration of His immense finite greatness, then, I do stand a chance. For you see, I myself am also immensely but finitely great as well.
On the day that I consumed Kafet, I made the decision to also, one day, consume Papa Voice. And so, now, I prepare for it.
There are no longer any souls in Hell. I have consumed them all. All that remain here are my armies and the Damned. There is, of course, the never ending stream of new souls. But, they simply do not last long anymore before they are either consumed by myself or by one of my minions.
I need power, and I am frantically grasping at each and every fiber of it. I do it because, I am desperately trying to match or overpass a level of power that is so great that the entire universe just gave up trying to measure it, and decided instead to simply call it "infinite."
One day, very soon, I will attack. And the outcome of this attack will result in either the death or permanent erasure of myself, or the creation of a new god and the simultaneous creation of a new damned.
Where do gods come from?
If my guess is right, very soon, they will come from Hell.
I guess I always knew how I would make my final attack. I'd been reading the scriptures off and on ever since they were first written long ago. In those books, I had always seen how "The Great Enemy of Peace" would one day rise up and overthrow the Earth. That was me they were talking about I guess. I never took it seriously though. Then, Kafet entered my world, and all those ideas that had seemed so far fetched immediately jumped into my consciousness as possibilities.
I read about how I would organize the great church that would cover the world in darkness. I read about how the world would begin to call evil "good" and good "evil" and despise men that followed Papa Voice. You can imagine my surprise when I read about the final day when I personally visit the Earth and bring with me a temporary end to all happiness.
The part that intrigued me the most was when, in the scriptures, it then talked about Papa Voice himself confronting me. It talked of us waging a final and great war where I myself would be conquered and imprisoned in a pit of my own making.
This part did boggle me a little when I first read it, because I, at the time, had no pits that I had ever dug.
It made a little more sense one day though, when after one of my long visits back to Earth, I returned to find great big holes dug under each of the seven entries. I spoke with one of my assistants, and he apologized for it. He told me that the new entries had begun to come at such a great pace, that he had had a hard time keeping all of them contained. His idea was that, were great pits dug under the entries, the new souls, as they entered, would be unable to escape. We ended up solving the problem by creating a whole new fleet of interviewers. We then also at that time, built the great lava pits, my larders, where we keep the souls that have not yet been consumed. I got that idea as well from the scriptures. I had read something once about "Lakes of Fire and Brimstone." It seemed to be what we needed. Souls that went in rarely had the presence of mind required to climb out. They were the perfect cages. They also ended up being a wonderful way to reduce the noise of my world. The thousands on the surface of course screamed, but the hundreds of thousands beneath were satisfactorily silenced.
Anyway, over the years, slowly, the idea of creating a new religion began to look more and more like a good idea to me.
I mean if you think about it, because Papa Voice asks us all to walk by faith, those that have no faith look at religion, and all they see is a bunch of seeming fools doing things that no one in their right mind, in their faithless opinion, would do. They also see the same bunch of seeming fools denying themselves the pleasures that they themselves hold dear. The word "religion" then, amongst those without faith would become a word of such derision, that many of them would very easily be tricked into joining a religion that, in their own opinion, actually did organize the type of "morals" and "moralistic behaviors" that they believed were wise and good. The members of this new religion would somehow see their active and sustained support for this religion almost as a pure hearted attempt to rescue the words "religion", "good", "morality" and "love" from those who had been defining them absurdly for millennia.
People that do bad things routinely...people that accept and welcome unrighteousness into their lives almost always, somehow or somewhere, accept insanity into their lives as well. You have to. If you didn't the never-ending guilt and shame would handicap you. You would have to, on some level, accept a portion of insanity into your life just to keep your self esteem intact. There is no other way. My religion simply takes advantage of this insanity. And when enough people are made sufficiently poor and destitute because of it, the collective increase in unrighteousness, it will then be a very simple thing to take advantage of the insanity and simply blame Papa Voice for all the poverty. It won't matter if my accusations make no sense. The insane don't need you to make sense...they just need you to tell them that they are not insane. And when that happens, when the world begins to look at Papa Voice, and blame Him for all the pain and poverty that I talked them into creating, then, the fun begins.
Making one religion seemed to be the perfect means of destroying the other. And in the midst of such a great war, Papa Voice would certainly come. And once there, I would have my opportunity. The scriptures even told me so.
The only real other problem I had was figuring out how to get a majority of people to join my religion. I had to have enough people in it so that they would feel capable and willing of making their challenge. As long as they were in a distant minority, certainly they would not be brave enough to challenge civilization itself. It didn't take long to figure that one out though.
Most people are honest enough. Most people are good enough. Therefore, appealing to morality and honesty weren't really possible for me. Papa Voice had a corner on that market. I did have two things though that I could appeal to: the economy and fun.
Fun. Would it be fun to be able to run as fast as a cheetah? Would it be fun to be as strong as an elephant? Would it be fun to be able to fly? Would it be fun to be able to go invisible? It would, wouldn't it? Very fun.
Are there people out there who would be willing to abandon Papa Voice in order to have as much fun as this? You bet. The faithless. There are always plenty of those.
Here's the important question though. Could having these abilities also increase your income? You bet they would! Runners. Bricks. Fliers. Ghosts. They became the superstars of this world overnight. They were paid astounding amounts of money for their gifts. They received astounding amounts of fame and respect as well. And all they had to do to get it was to abandon Papa Voice.
Guess what happened after that though? This is the fun part. The economy changed. Jealousy entered the picture and even more people opted to abandon Papa Voice in order to get the money, fame and respect enjoyed by others. As the numbers of those who gained these powers increased though, the prices paid to people for these powers decreased as well. It's just the law of supply and demand, y'know? Economics 101.
Not long after, there weren't any superstars anymore. It became as common to be able to fly as it was to be blond. Not long after, it became an economic necessity to leave Papa Voice and everyone, by the millions, came into my church. Some came enthusiastically. Some came half-heartedly. Others came crying. Others were so overly-distraught with poverty and guilt that they came in insane.
It was amazing how well it worked! No one ever understands how powerful a tool the economy can be!
You see, I had an advantage that Papa Voice didn't.
The thing about Papa Voice's religion, is that He lets His people suffer. That's the key. He lets them go through some quite painful moments there on Earth. He does it for their own good, of course. I mean, you know, people that suffer due to bad actions of their own can use the bad feelings and learn from them. They can then, in order to not feel bad anymore, make better choices, right? And then, those that see people that suffer from the bad choices of others, can see the suffering and how it was brought about by those bad choices. And then the wise and good ones of them, will choose to live better simply so that they themselves won't cause suffering. Papa Voice allows people to feel pain, so that they can learn how to avoid causing it to themselves and others.
People are such a bunch of wimps though. They see the pain and blame Him for it. That's the weakness of His plan. That's the spot where I can best attack. I will take advantage of the wimps. I will take advantage of those who choose to blame Papa Voice for His supposed neglect of them. Really, they are the perfect tool.
I took away their pain just long enough to start the economic cascade that has led to so much of my own success.
Let's not forget about the greedy either. They were quite useful as well. And they are even easier to control. You see Papa Voice appears to not care at all about the financial status of any of His followers. The truth though is that He does, although it's not His highest concern. The important part of this though, is only that He appears to not care. He tells people to give to the poor, to give to His church, to be honest...even to the one's who are suffering financially. He is so apparently apathetic to one's financial status that the greedy just run away from Him.
I just gave them a place to run to. I gave them money and ease. I gave them power.
Papa Voice's religion promises seeming slavery, work and sacrifice. My religion gave power, fun and money. If you had no faith, if you were greedy, if you were a wimp, which would you join? And, honestly speaking, even if you held true to Papa Voice despite my temptations, which church would you secretly wish you could join?
What a stupid silly bunch of people you all are! I love you and the joy your foolishness has brought into my life.
Well... Anyway...
Of course, I have no intention of giving the freedoms forever. I guess I could. But, would you if you didn't have to? People have to die sometime. And when they do, those that chose to follow me come here. And then they're mine to do with as I please. I don't owe them anything anymore. And honestly, I never owed them anything in the first place.
It was actually a pretty simple plan when all is said and done.
Oh yeah, by the way, if you're curious about the name of my religion, you know, "Nahli," here's where it came from:
"Freedom" in Spanish is "Libertad."
"Today" in Tagalog is "Ngayon." The "g" in "Ngayon" is actually quite soft though. It is hardly noticeable. To pronounce it, one simply says "Nahyon" instead.
I considered at first using "Nahyon Libertad" (Today's Freedom), but shortened it to "Nahli" just to not make it so obvious.
So, "Nahli" actually can be translated into "Today's Freedom." Y'know, as opposed to, "Tomorrow's Damnation." :)
See you on the other side! :)