Life is short, Eternity isn't. Or so He told me.

I was on the highway driving home from a vacation recently and I saw a billboard which I found particularly disturbing. There was no profanity. There were no lewd or violent images. In fact the billboard was without any graphical embellishment whatsoever. It was very plain and consisted of naught more than a black background with white letters that read as follows:

Life is Short, Eternity isn't.

                                  -God

I am well aware that signs like this are common in some areas of the United States and other countries but I rarely encounter them myself. I hear such billboards are more prevalent in the south, so having lived in a northern state all my life this is little surprise. However, I was rather close to home when I came across this particular pillar of wisdom.

"Life is Short..." Alright, I'll buy that. "....Eternity isn't." Well, comparatively speaking, I suppose that's true. After all, a single life will end long before "Eternity" is up. But then eternity never ends. So can it still be measured in terms of long and short? Is God making exactly that point with his vaguely ominous statement or are his words just that, vague and ominous? Is he making an intellectual point regarding some discrepancy between finite and infinite measures or is he merely making a subtle but foreboding threat? Or is he saying something completely different from these two speculations?

I think there are a few possibilities pertaining to the message to be taken from this billboard as well as the identity of the author and they are:

1. God wishes to incite some kind of profound thought regarding the age of the universe and how insignificant our short lives are in comparison to such a vast and overwhelming span of time. Now in this case, "God" could either be some form of omnipotent creator or merely the pseudonym of some scientist or philosopher. However, "Eternity" seemed like an odd choice of words for one who would wish to evoke such a response so this interpretation is likely false, at least from "God's" perspective.

2. God is immortal and omnipresent. He has existed forever, and will go on to exist for another forever and another and another and so on and so forth. You however, the mortal reader, will not exist forever...and you are incredibly lucky because of that. Your life is beautiful because it is finite, every experience is unique and wonderful. There are so many things to feel and do that you can't possibly fit them all in your brief existence, but you can try. And even if you "fail" at life and end up on death's doorstep burdened with regret and resentment, at least you will be released from your anguish. God is never released. He is bound, for whatever reason, to an infinite and unfeeling existence. He is telling you that he is not a being to be worshiped and revered but one to be pitied. However, this interpretation is not likely to be true either since it would be coming from a "God" with a disposition that few have considered much less believe in. Surely such a god would see that his message on that billboard could be easily misconstrued by the many who worship more personal but less forgiving gods.

3. God is immortal and omnipotent. He has existed forever, and will go on to exist for another forever and another and another and so on and so forth. And guess what, you can exist forever with him! Or without him, depending on the choices you make in your "Short" life. This is the God of the Bible or some similar religious text speaking. After this point, his true intentions are masked since we are unsure of what religious text this god is from and what interpretation of this unknown text we are to judge his words by. He could be all-forgiving, and welcome all people, no matter their faith or sins, into some kind of eternal bliss. Or he could be the wrathful type who allows only his most faithful followers entrance into heaven and consigns the rest to fiery torment forever and ever and ever and ever and so on and so forth. since we are unsure about God's disposition we cannot say with much certainty that this interpretation is correct either.

4. This sign is a threat, not from "God," but from a very human religious organization that wishes to manipulate the masses to gain power, fill its coffers, and keep its current followers in line. They know that people fear death and what might happen after death so they exploit this fear. The sign might as well read: "Life is Short, Eternity isn't. You wouldn't want to spend that Eternity roasting in Hell would you?" The threat, of course, is empty because there is no such thing as "God" and if there is, he probably doesn't give a shit what we do with our lives. The scumbags who commissioned this billboard don't care about intellectual discourse or any real form of enlightenment. They are only out to frighten the ignorant into accepting their crackpot fairy tales as some form of divine salvation. And the worst part is, they believe every word that they pull from their preacher's ass. Well most of them believe it at any rate. I'm sure some of them are in it because they know people are stupid, and there's shitloads of money in that single gem of knowledge. This final possibility is the most likely conclusion from among the four choices listed.

Why is this conclusion the most likely? While none of the other possibilities were very likely in the fist place, there was also a crucial detail of the billboard that I had missed as I was driving by. You see, I hadn't been able to take a photo of this sign for use here since my primary focus was the road and I had no camera anyway. So, I googled the billboard and sure enough, I found a picture. This picture had one embellishment.

This single addition eliminates options 1 and 2 since this website is devoid of any semblance of scientific thought and is Christian based (thus providing the God's general disposition were we to assume these were the words of a god). Also, this gives us certainty as to which holy text we are dealing with. While I am not the most avid of bible readers, I am fairly certain that god has never uttered, or been accounted to have uttered, the statement which appears on the billboard above. That being said, we must assume that he spoke to someone working for the God Speaks campaign, GodSpeaks.com is misquoting its deity and God never spoke at , or the aforementioned deity does not exist but his worshipers would love for you to think so.

Upon visiting the website, I could not bring myself to accept any but the latter of those options(though they don't seem to be trying very hard). After laying eyes on the rest of the abhorrent billboard captions I was quite certain that not even the most intellectually deficient almighty creator could (or would for fear of embarrassment) concoct or condone such bullshit.

Some of my personal favorites were:

"Big Bang Theory, you've got to be kidding?"

"One nation under me."

and finally "You think it's hot here?" which I found particularly ironic next to "I love you...I love you...I love you."

My only question now is who the hell was possessed to start such an ad campaign. This seems like the kind of thing that the Devil might do to discredit God, if either of the two existed. At most, these signs could succeed at making some dimwit Christians feel a pang of guilt at not attending Sunday mass. Any atheists will either be disgusted, amused, indignant, or simply a tingly amalgamation of all three. Those of other religions will scoff at the arrogance of Christianity. Then of course any intelligent Christians will put their head in their hands and accidentally drive into a ditch.

I mean, Jesus Christ! Where do they get this shit?