toothless hell, part 3

Rubbish!

Here is a short play.

Dramatis Personae:

A

B

An office. 

B: Hello!  I'm researching Christianity, with a view to either embracing or rejecting eternal salvation.  Can you tell me what this religion has to offer me?

A: Well, ultimately, God wants you to go to heaven.

B: Great!  [Gets up to leave.]  I'll see you there!

A: Wait!  He'll have to make you a new person first, one who can be happy in heaven.

B: Wouldn't I be happy in heaven without being having been made a new person?

A: Frankly, no.  You'd get sick of trying to be nice to everyone.  God wants to turn you into a person who is spontaneously nice to everyone.

B: God wants to give me hard drugs?

A+B: Ha ha ha!

A: No. 

B: Some kind of lobotomy? Ha ha ha.

A: Stop it now.  No - it's a painless procedure, by which you can be transformed into an entirely new person while still remaining yourself!  God will graft a new personality onto you, and gently phase out your present personality, so that you slowly become a new person, and this new person will go on to live in boundless paradise but will nonetheless still be you.

B: Wait a moment here.  Can you prove any of this?

A: If I could prove to you that God wants to graft a new personality onto you, and gently phase out the old personality, so that you gradually become a new person, and this new person will go on to live in boundless paradise but will nonetheless still be you - would you allow him to do it?  This moment?

B: [Slaps thigh.] Sir, I would!  But I don't see how you could possibly prove it.

A: Neither can I.

B: Oh!  Never mind, eh? [Gets up to leave.]

A: Wait!  You could ask God to do it anyway. 

B: Why would I do that?

A: If he’s real, he’ll do it, and you’ll have your proof.  If not, you’ve lost nothing.  You want to do that now?

B: [Looking at watch.]  Not right now.  Maybe when I get home.

A: If you don’t want to be made new now, what makes you think you’ll want it when you get home?  What makes you think you’ll ever want it?

B: Hey, I think that if I find myself standing before the fires of hell, I’ll want it!

A: But that will be the one time when you won’t be able to want it!

B: What?

A: If you’re faced with the fires of hell, the only thing you’ll be able to want is to avoid the fires of hell.

B: Really?

A: You won’t be capable of wanting anything else!  In other words, the moment you’re given an absolute reason to choose heaven, you won’t be able to freely choose anything.

B: Um -

FIN.

Coming up: exactly the same play, but in the style of a restoration comedy.