Page 3 - Ferry Tales

Weedle

Nobody knows before they die which it will be. If you don’t believe,
and therefore don’t behave virtuously, you have essentially bet against
the afterlife, matching your meager lifetime of behavior against
eternity in either Heaven or Hell. So the rational choice is to act as a
believer, because the stakes are so high.”
“Wonderful way to think about it!” say I, positively jubilant. “How
did you bet?”
“The only way a civilized person in full possession of their faculties
would bet: conservatively. I avoided sin like the plague! No one could
say that I ever chose vice over virtue in my lifetime. That’s why I was
cheated: if the afterlife exists at all, I shouldn’t be on this infernal
ride!”
“I see,” say I, pretending to give the matter great thought. “And
with whom did you place this bet—the Frenchman?”
Weedle catches himself and twitches. I knew it wasn’t the
Frenchman; he came through here a long time ago. You remember
him, Cerberus: nervous but dignified, and a quick study. No
complaints, one bank of the river to the other. I don’t think he really
believed in that nonsense he was spreading about the countryside.
“Ah, no. It wasn’t exactly with anyone.”
“Really?” Now I had him. “Then who held the stakes? Who set the
odds? Who collected when you lost?”
“I don’t know!”
“Oh, come on, Weedle. The answer to all three questions is the
same party you are going to meet very soon. And does your idea of
virtue include gambling?”
Now he was desperate. “The church has bingo on Tuesdays!”
“That won’t do,” I snapped. “And what about cynically following
someone else’s plan instead of figuring out for yourself what is moral
or ethical, or that virtue is its own reward? Did you stop to think
about that?”
He stopped then. But I was ready.
“I know what you did, Weedle: accepted a simplistic argument
without doing proper analysis. The Devil is in the details, often
enough, but He doesn’t have to get anywhere near the fine print if
you people can’t even make sense of what’s in the larger fonts. If you
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