Laudator Temporis Acti

Alan Watts (1915-1973), In My Own Way: An Autobiography 1915-1965 (1972; rpt. Novato: New World Library, 2007), pp. 35-36:

There was also that twisted-head idea of heaven which describes the immense fun of eternity as

Prostrate before Thy throne to lie,
And gaze and gaze on Thee.

Children notice these things and, though they may make jokes about them among themselves, are often seriously troubled by the apparent seriousness with which adults take them.

Children, as well as adults, make humorous, bantering, scurrilous, and abusive uses of the notion of hell as everlasting post-mortem damnation. But I was so appalled by this possibility that I would lie awake at night worrying about it, frightened of going to sleep because of the obvious analogy between sleep and death. People were always talking about someone or other who "died in his sleep." My mother tried to console me by quoting John 3:16, but there seemed to be no way of being really and truly sure that one actually and genuinely did believe in Jesus, or whether one had not inadvertently committed the unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost by laughing at the limerick

Il y avait un jeune homme de Dijon
Qui n'amait pas la religion.
    Il dit, "O ma foi,
    Comme drôle sont ces trois:
Le Pere, et le Fils, et le Pigeon."

Which, I suppose could be translated into English as

There was a young fellow of Dijon,
Who took a dislike to religion.
    He said, "Oh my God,
    These three are so odd—
The Father, the Son, and the Pigeon."⁶

As one is tempted to fall over a precipice from vertigo, the child exposed to this grotesque Bible religion is apt to mutter compulsively under his breath, "Damn the Holy Ghost," and then suffer from paroxysms of guilt. Do the adults seriously mean that if you whisper this diabolic formula you will, when dead, squirm and scream in unquenchable fire forever and ever and ever, Amen? After all, a child is not theologically sophisticated, and takes this imagery literally.

⁶ Why translate it? Because most of my American readers, especially the younger, do not understand French, or any language other than their own. Strangely, from a European point of view, they may otherwise be amazingly intelligent people. Also, unless they come from a respectably churchly family (Episcopalian or Presbyterian) or from the Bible-crazed South, they will not have read the Bible at all, and thus will not understand the reference John 3:16, a verse from the Gospel of Saint John in which it is said that "God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life." Even then, an intelligent young American hasn't the faintest idea of what is meant by an "only-begotten Son" or by "eternal life."

Id., p. 47:

But these impoverished Christians do nothing in their religious observances except chatter. They tell God what he ought and ought not to do, and inform him of things of which he is already well aware, such as that they are miserable sinners, and proceed then to admonish one another to feel guilt and regret about abominable behavior which they have not the least intention of changing. If God were the sort of being most Christians suppose him to be, he would be beside himself with boredom listening to their whinings and flatteries, their redundant requests and admonitions, not to mention the asinine poems set to indifferent tunes which are solemnly addressed to him as hymns.

Id., pp. 70-71:

As I have said, I simply couldn’t get along with the Christian God. He was a bombastic bore, and not at all the sort of fellow you would want to entertain for dinner, because you would be sitting on the edge of your chair listening to his subtle attempts to undermine your existence and to probe the unauthentic nature of your life. He was like the school chaplain who took you aside for a VERY SERIOUS TALK. He had no gaieté d'esprit, no charm, no lilt, no laughter, and no sensual delight in the world of nature which he had supposedly created.