please critisize“This has got to be the dumbest thing I’ve ever done” said Maricus. Isn’t there another way to figure this out?“Well this is the most accurate way we have” said Dr. Langdon. “If you have a better way of figuring this out, I’d be glad to hear it.” Maricus sat quietly for a moment.“No I don’t have a better way, but I was just wondering do we really need to know?” asked Maricus after a moment. Dr. Langdon pondered.“Yes” he replied after a while. “It’s not like you’re really dieing. You get to come back after a few minutes.” Maricus thought about it, and said nothing else.They resumed changing their clothes in the dressing room. They removed their causal attire and replaced them with plain white hospital scrubs. They put their belongings into their respective lockers, and exited the dressing rooms. They walked into the hallway and meet two more mean in identical attire.“Are you gentlemen ready?” asked Dr. Langdon.“Ready as we’ll ever be” said one of the men.“Not sure if I still want to go through with this” said the other man.“Good lord, am I the only one with any balls around here” asked Dr. Langdon jokingly. “Fawkes, I’m surprised at you” he said referring to the person that had spoken previous to him. “You’re usually the brave one. We’ve already got enough adversity coming from outside sources, the last thing we need is someone getting cold feet at the last second. So if anyone wants out, they say so now.” The hallway was silent. “Very well, let’s do this” Dr. Langdon said beginning to walk. The other men followed behind him.They walked down the hallway, passing doors with signs that read:Dr. Samuel WashingtonDepartment of Biblical ScienceDr. Edward LyonsDepartment of DivinityDr. Marcus RossDepartment of Biological Creationism.They reached a pair of swinging doors. Dr. Langdon pushed through them. On the other side stood a man wearing a black suit with a red tie. The lapel of the suit had a crucifix pin on it.“Dr. Lennon, to what do we owe the surprise?” asked Dr. Langdon. “If it is about stopping the experiment, I will have to ask you to talk to me about it afterwards becauseWe’re about to go do the experiment.”“Langdon, I’ve previously been against the experiment because of its lack of Christian morals, which I am still against, but now I think your team is in danger.“What kind of danger?” asked Dr. Langdon.“I think someone might pull the plug on you guys” said Dr. Lennon.“Lennon, we have everything set up well here” said Dr. Langdon. We’ve covered every corner on this. Nobody is going to pull the plug”.“But Langdon there are forces at work here that you don’t see” Dr. Lennon said in solemn voice.Dr. Langdon began to chuckle. “What forces, Aliens” the other men began to laugh all except for Dr. Lennon. “Let’s do this before the Aliens get here guys” Dr. Langdon joked. The group of men walked away leaving Dr. Lennon do watch them disappear through another pair of double doors.“The men walked into what appeared to be a well illuminated surgical auditorium. In the center there were four tables with IV machines beside them. At the head of each of the tables there was a computer, each with a man controlling it. The spectator section of the auditorium was full of people, all of whom were gazing at the four men who had just entered, and whispering among themselves. In the middle of the surgical floor was a podium with a microphone on top.Dr. Langdon walked to the podium. The other men stood on either side of him. “Good evening, ladies, and gentlemen” Dr. Langdon began. “I would like to welcome you to SIC, the Scientific Institute of Creationism. Here men from all over the world have come together in and attempt to prove the theories of Creationism. We are glad that you have attended today, to witness this day that shall most defiantly go down in the pages of history. Today we shall find sufficient evidence to prove the theory of intelligent design, and possibly disprove the theory of evolution. How will we do so? We believe that the only way to prove that there is a God is to see him. So that is exactly what we plan to do here today.Murmurs erupted throughout the auditorium. “How do you plan to do that?” One of the men shouted from the observation balcony.“Well” Dr. Langdon continued. “The bible teaches us that when we die we shall come before God in judgment. We believe this is the only surefire way to se God.”Murmurs once again echoed through the auditorium. “So you plan to kill yourself?” someone shouted out.“We will not be breathing, and we won’t have a heartbeat, but we will regain them after twenty minutes. We will use a newly developed chemical, named Babylonium, which will stop our heartbeat and breathing. After our twenty minutes, Babylonium will restart our heartbeat and breathing. By that time we believe we will have had contact with the Supreme Being.”The room was quiet. “So you basically plan to trick God.” Someone shouted out.“We do not plan to trick him; we just mean to establish contact” Replied Dr. Langdon.“How do you know the drug will work in stopping your heartbeat, and breathing, and then restarting them?“The medicine” said Dr. Langdon has been thoroughly tested on animals. This is the first time it will be used on a human. Still we are confident that it will work.”“How do we know that you will really be dead?” asked another man. “And how do we know that it won’t be a biased answer?”“To your first question” said Dr. Langdon. “We have an Electrocardiogram monitoring our heartbeats that you can see on the TV in the observation balcony. We also have four doctors from local hospitals and medical school that will be down here observing, and manually checking us for a heartbeat. For your question about knowing if it is the truth I am taking three other men. The one to my left is Dr. Amahad Rashik. He is a professor of Islamic studies at Florida State University. Since he practices another religion he will not lie and just say that he saw God. The man to my close left is Dr. Gary Fawkes, who is a professor of philosophy at Duke University. He is a atheist who works with the Institute for Humanist Studies, and is a member of the South Place Ethical Society. With him on the team he will take out the chance of religious bias. To my far left is Maricus Battle. He is a Graduate student at Harvard Divinity School, pursuing a master of divinity. He has a bachelor’s degree in ethics from Howard University and is also a Notary Public. He will ensure the truth is being told.“This is blasphemy” said another voice from the balcony.“So we’ve been told” said Dr. Langdon. “Many religious groups have strongly opposed the experiment for various reasons. We believe it is in the interest of the future of man kind that we do this experiment. For to long man has wondered the existence of God. The belief has even halted scientific advances in fear of offending God. Today man shall wonder no longer. The experiment will begin in five minutes.”The men retreated from the podium. “I can’t believe we are about to do this” said Dr. Rashik. The men came together in a huddle.“Hope the Babylonium works” said Maricus. “I don’t have a life insurance policy yet.“Everything will work out fine” said Dr. Fawkes. “If it doesn’t, what will we care, we’ll be dead.”“We won’t die” said Dr. Langdon. “Now lets get to our tables and do this. We are about to see god, and prove or disprove the age old question of a Supreme Being.”The men walked to their tables and laid down on them. A sense of excitement filled the room. All was silent. An age old question was about to be answered. The four men were nervous because they were about to kill themselves, and more importantly stand before god himself.The men who were behind the computers started to connect the IV machines that would administer the Babylonium. They sanitized the area were they were going to put the needle. Then they stuck it in. The men’s faces twisted in a quick moment of pain, but soon were relieved. The technicians then went to there computers and started the flow of Babylonium into their bodies. They lay on the table breathing heavily. Their eyes were looking every which way. Soon there eyes began to close. The lines on the Electrocardiogram began to flatten. Soon the line became completely flat. A beep echoed through the room.The four men found themselves in fog. There was no sound. There was nothing. There were just the four men. They looked around expecting to see something or at least hear something. But there was nothing.“I am ready for you gentlemen” said a loud voice suddenly. Then the four men found themselves in an office. The office had bare white walls with an oak desk. A man was sitting behind the desk looking at the frightened men chuckling. He wore a white three-piece suit, and had a well groomed beard on his face. “Welcome gentlemen” he said. “We’ve been expecting you.”The men stood dumbfounded before the mans desk. But the worst off was Fawkes who was in a state only describable as insanity. “I believe you gentlemen have your answer now don’t you?” said the man behind the desk.“There is a God” said Fawkes, hardly believing his own words.“You admit without seeing him yet” said the man. “That’s strange for a man of science like you.”“So you’re not God” said Langdon finally having the courage to speak up.“No, I’m not” said the man. “You will see him in a moment. For the record when you do see him, you should bow down.”“Who are you then?” asked Maricus.“I’m an angel” the man replied.“So there is a Supreme Being” said Langdon.“Yes” said the man.“Can we talk to him?” asked Langdon.“No need to be in such hurry” replied the man. “Trust me. You will get your turn.”“But we have to hurry up” said Langdon.“Trust me” said the man. “You have plenty of time.“You don’t understand” said Langdon. “We are only going to be up here for twenty minutes, and then we are coming back to life.”“I know your plan” said the man chuckling. “It’s not going to work.”“What!” exclaimed the men simultaneously.“You gentlemen really thought you could cheat God?” said the man chuckling. “There’s a reason men don’t know for sure that God exist. If they did what would be the point of life. God put man on earth to test his faith. If man knew for sure that God existed man would have no faith, he would know. Knowing takes away the need for faith. Knowing everything is a horrible existence because you will have nothing to question, and having nothing to question is a fate much worst than death.”“There is no purpose in questioning if you aren’t going to make an effort to figure it out” retorted Langdon.“True” said the man. “God gave man a quizzical nature. A sense of curiosity that causes a hunger that can only be feed by knowledge. I suppose it’s not your fault. It’s your nature. I suppose if man didn’t have that sense of wonder he would be no more than a monkey that stood upright. Well still we knew it would come to this. God made it so it would happen this way. Gregory he gave you sense of curiosity greater than most other men. Your yearning to understand everything has become apparent in this fiasco. It was truly your destiny for you and your friend’s lives to end like this.”The men gave each other a quick look. “End” they said in unison.The man began to chuckle. “You didn’t expect us to send you back down there and mess life up for everyone else did you?” The men stood dumbfounded again. “At this moment the doctors who were watching over you have declared you legally, and irreversibly dead.”“How?” asked Langdon.“You should have listened to your friend Frederick Lennon” said the man. “There were forces at work there that weren’t visible. You should do a little more of a background check on the men who you leave your life in the hands of. The technicians were Catholics. If you remember one of the religious groups that opposed the experiment was the Catholic Church. You see in the event that you did cross into the other side and did not see God; you would come back and tell everyone that there was no God. If you did do that they would loss a considerable amount of influence in the world. They were not willing to allow that to happen. Lets just say some officials at the Vatican told the technicians that if they put a few ounces more of the Babylonium, which would then make it lethal, in each of your IV `s that your deaths would be used as atonement for all their sins, and lets just say those technicians had quite a few skeletons in the closet.”The men stood there speechless.“We’re dead” said Maricus.“As a door knob” replied the man.“We can’t go back” said Rashik.“That is highly unlikely. All you can do now is stand before God in judgment, and maybe then God will let you go back” said the man.“How do we do that?” asked Langdon.“Just walk through that door” said the man. “God has the final say. He’s going to place judgment on you.” The man opened a folder. “By the looks of it” he said looking at some papers in the folder. “All of you are going to have a lot to answer for.”“Wait it’s not fair” said Fawkes desperately. “I didn’t know there was a God, so I didn’t live right.”“That’s what faith is for” said the man. “Now its time.” He said pointing to the door in the corner near his desk.“What if we don’t go?” asked Fawkes.“Then things could get ugly” said the man.The men walked towards the door. They never knew they would be so afraid to stand before God. Langdon reached the door. He placed his hand on the gold door knob. He looked behind him. He looked at the men he would stand before God with. All of them with the fear of God in their hearts. Langdon opened the door. A bright light swallowed up the room.
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