World Weird Web: Heaven’s on the Internet

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Even atheists can’t deny that an eternal afterlife of peace and joy sounds like a good way to go. For those who believe it exists, the big debate is typically over how to get there. Some religions suggest dietary restrictions, most agree that not killing people and stealing their cars is a pretty good start, and others have complicated systems resembling a multiple-choice exam that’s graded on a curve. All of this, of course, requires considerable effort.

The Reformation Online, a website dedicated to spreading the word of Martin Luther, has a new take on an age old problem: getting to Heaven is as simple as using the internet. Yes, The Reformation Online is “The Information Superhighway to Heaven!!”

If the double exclamation marks aren’t enough to convince you, read on.

The Reformation Online has found several ways to integrate technological terminology with Protestantism, forging brand-new metaphors in the process. The site urges readers to trust in God’s plan without looking for scientific evidence to refute the word: What you see, the site tells us, is what you get. WSYIWYG (pronounced wissywig) editors, used to create websites without mucking around with HTML, allow you to get a result precisely like what you see in the editor. God, apparently, used something similar when creating the earth.

According to the site, “The Biblical geocentric model of the universe is called WYSIWYG—what you see is what you get... True science is supposed to be based on observation . . . It is a simple and readily understandable scenario for those who are willing to believe what their eyes tell them, and make the mental transition back to the instinctive reference frame of a stationary earth.”

The Reformation Online goes on to note that “Many people consider the Encyclopedia Britannica the FINAL AUTHORITY on all scientific matters,” and adds that the encyclopedia does not in fact prove that the earth moves — it’s merely stated as a fact. “To doubt” that the earth moves, the site says, “is to be damned to a spinning hell forever by the ‘scientific’ community.”

Forget flames and pitchforks: hell is a place where everything spins, perhaps like an everlasting Tilt-a-Whirl.

The page goes on to explain, in great detail and with diagrams, how all of the phenomena we observe, such as seasons and eclipses, are actually accounted for by a stationary earth. Reformation.org is also chock-full of useful trivia.

For example: “The moon is composed of some highly reflective material that acts like a mirror. The best guess is frozen water or ice.” Ice and frozen water, please note, differ significantly from one another.

Or: “The earth is NOT TILTED 23.45 degrees....It is UPRIGHT as God created man to walk UPRIGHT.” Those who slouch also go to a spinning hell, perhaps.

Of course, The Reformation Online’s theories are obviously bogus, despite the extensive and logical argument used to back them up. They start from the assumption that the stationary earth is round — and as everyone knows, the world is actually flat.

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