Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for September 28, 2023

Heaven: a place where you can indulge in your vices without the worry of going to hell.

You hardly have a chance as it is, Calvin.

If Calvin did that, he would probably not go to Heaven anyway because his good actions are insincere.

Calvin denied his true dark nature once . . . for about ten seconds.

Calvin found a loophole!

Not sure if I’d like heaven, I need to have fun and free range.

You get thirty-two “dates”. I’ll explain it when you are older.

Obviously Calvin has more imagination than Hobbes

Isn’t that what Jack Nicholson was thinking in THE SHINING??

More fictional than the usual version

Sounds like a Dexter statement…….

That’s Cal. Always picking the ‘thin ice’ for skating

Don’t think I do either.

New discoveries are made by identifying unknown elements in chaos. It is where chemistry and physics came from.

That’s some twist on John Calvin’s theology: man is basically evil and even the predestinated will be bad in heaven?

Welcome to hell, Calvin. You’ll love it.

The one thing that people forget is that, in h*ll, one will be completely, utterly, despairingly alone. On fire.

Theology by Calvin…not John Calvin…just Calvin…

That’s life, kid… If you want eternal paradise, you have to be a absolute saint! But if you chose to live your life as just plain yourself… Sorry, kiddo. You’ve just booked a one-way trip to eternal torment!

There was a Twilight Zone episode where a gangster thought he was in heaven, but he was really in hell. He was at a casino where he always won, but that got boring after a while.

He is, after all, a Calvinist: “God selected a limited number of souls to grant salvation and there’s nothing any individual person can do during their mortal life to alter their eternal fate.”

Heaven or hell is what you make of your life on earth

Black Sabbath comes to mind.

So, it’s on and on and on

Oh, it’s on and on and on

It goes on and on and on

Heaven and Hell, I can tell

Fool, fool…

Heaven is confusing and some bit of a mystery.

Personally, I don’t worry about heaven. That’s like working for the weekend. If you are behaving yourself solely for the purpose of your personal salvation and going to heaven, then I suggest you look at some other religions.

I’m kind of of the school that we are not here to save ourselves, but to save each other. In my vocabulary save and serve pretty much have the same meaning. I’m having a fun time here trying to do that. I’ll collect my paycheck when I finally stop by the office.

But people are saved by faith, not works. So behavior is irrelevant.

Per Byrne, Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens.

well. what is to stop you when you are there?

Maybe Calvin’s Hell is a place where he’s forced to be good.

Nope. It appears you have the requisite attitude to join the rebels in the underworld. I suggest a change of attitude, but hey, you do you little dude.

If you commit crime in heaven they normally send you down to purgatory, but the transit workers are on strike for better pay.

Yes because serial adultery, lies, and drunkenness sound like heaven to me. There is no joy in doing evil, but we are deceived into thinking there is.

Courtesy of

“Welcome to the afterlife. Do you want to go to Heaven or Hell?” “Wait, you’re asking me where I want to go? You don’t decide it based on how I lived my life or anything?” “Nope, it’s entirely your choice.”

“Heaven,” I said enthusiastically.

“Excellent, the angel responded. “We always need more laborers.”

“Wait. Laborers? Isn’t heaven a place where I get to rest and enjoy eternal martinis and perfect sunsets on the beach?”

“No,” the angel laughed. “Heaven is hard labor. You’ll work 60 hours a week building roads, mansions, extending the pearly gates, and maintaining the farm. There are also mandatory worship services, prayer sessions, and you’ll have to sign up to care for children who died too soon.”

My nose crinkled in displeasure. “What is hell, then?”

“Hell has drugs and alcohol you can use to your heart’s content, video games, sex, food whatever you’d like is at the snap of your fingers. You never have to want for anything there.” The angel sighed, and passed me a form to relinquish my right to heaven and enter hell.

I signed.

The ink looked red.

A demon appeared before me, sinfully attractive. The demon gave me an appraising look and nodded; I could probably get laid if I played my cards right, and if the angel was correct, I would. The demon reached out, looping a thin thread across my wrist, and led me gently away from the angel.

Hell was amazing. It was colorful, bright. Everything was tempting. And I didn’t have a time limit. I did everything. I ate, I drank, I drugged. I gambled and won. I played video games and won. Everything was easy. The only challenge came in the sex, if you could even call it that, so raw and animalistic, rutting like rabbits in heat.

Calvin is thinking of “Heaven Annex”…

I like to remind my Christian friends that whatever their own personal idea of what heaven is, God’s idea of the perfect Utopia for human kind is described in Genesis. You are naked, in a forest with apple trees and snakes.

By then, Calvin, you’ll have turned over a new leaf….hopefully

a true philosophical psychologist politician in the making

“There is always something they insist on keeping even at the price of misery. There is always something they prefer to joy—that is, reality. Ye see it easily enough in a spoiled child that would sooner miss its play and its supper than say it was sorry and be friends.” – C.S. Lewis on Hell.

“I’m not sure I have that much imagination.” I love Hobbes!

There is only one way to heaven. It’s for those who acknowledge their rebellion against God and trust his provision for that sin in the accomplished work of Jesus.

An omniscient God would know you’re just pretending to be good, Calvin. Just like you pretend to be Spiff, or pretend to talk to your stuffed doll.

I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints.

.

The sinners are much more fun.

Heaven can wait.

Being good becomes a habit that stays with you your whole life, I’ve been told.

The famous philosopher Belinda Carlisle told me that heaven is a place on Earth.

So, is heaven a place where you enjoy yourself? If not, how could it be heaven? Conversely, if hell is a place where you enjoy yourself, how could it be hell?

Gotta love Calvi’s convoluted logic….

He was doing so good in caption 2~3… then he lost his salvation in caption 4 (LOL). But Calvin is quoting almost word for word from the Apostle Paul in Romans 7:15. The boy’s a budding theologian fo’ sho’

ain’t no heaven — ain’t no hell

Isn’t it interesting that many have made comments about THEIR ideas about heaven and hell? Just made-up stuff, a hope with no foundation. What comfort is that? Trusting your eternity to your opinion??? Now, if the One Who rules heaven tells us about it, then our hope is sure and not ill founded. That is what God has done in the Bible. He has revealed what is impossible to know about unless we are told by Someone from there.

I do NOT want to be in a place filled with religious people. I avoid them in life, being around them after death would be hell.

Okay, another thought, getting to heaven isn’t about behavior, good or bad. Mankind’s nature is to oppose God’s rule and do as we please. After John 3:16, we read that mankind is condemned already. That’s our problem, and that is why we are told we need to be born again. It is our nature that needs changing. If we repent (turn away from) of self-rule and submit to the rule of Christ, and acknowledge that He took the punishment we deserve, He will give us a new nature that wants to obey the laws of His kingdom.

It is too late for Calvin to lead a blameless life. He’s already done too many bad things to make it to heaven, per his beliefs.

Without the darkness, how would we ever see the light?

Hobbes: the voice of reality — LOLOL

“Well, hell was worse, by definition, but Crowley remembered what heaven had been like, and there were quite a few similarities. You couldn’t get a decent drink in either, for example.”

Today’s strip, yes I know old one, reminds me of a man much younger, lived a double life, one half life a great husband and dad also went to church and involved in Boy Scouts he did have a job, the bad life he kept hidden for 30 years became noted and where I live at public in fear, that fear drove public to buy guns, Our local police and news media never closed their case on the unknown, he liked the attention, especially no one knew who the guy was who did very horrible deed, involved way he did his crime taking a life. He slipped up, Police and Detectives on the alert, This man now 17 years for life in prison. Last word as his daughter went to talk with him about another possible horrible deed did not fit what he did, His daughter said he no longer has teeth, and handcuffed to a wheelchair. Word is he has cancer. Calvin hope that is not bad example what you are thinking.

A place you’re allowed to be bad…" Sounds a lot like Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Madison, Minneapolis, Austin, Baltimore, et al….

That does have a weird sort of logic…

Just move to Kalifornia Calvin, anything goes.

Is that Florida?

A house painter cuts every corner he can including thinning his paint so it’s just colored water. As luck has it, a heavy rain comes just as he finished painting the outside of a house, washing the paint job away. He is lamenting his bad luck when a voice comes out of the heavens and says, “Repaint and thin no longer”.