{"id":1236,"date":"2007-04-19T09:51:25","date_gmt":"2007-04-19T15:51:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/?p=1236"},"modified":"2007-04-19T09:51:25","modified_gmt":"2007-04-19T15:51:25","slug":"are-there-bathtubs-in-heaven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/2007\/04\/19\/are-there-bathtubs-in-heaven\/","title":{"rendered":"Are there bathtubs in heaven?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In an earlier post<\/a>, I wondered how God is going to entertain his followers up in heaven for all eternity, especially those who enjoy the less ethereal forms of entertainment (like jet skis).\u00a0 Now, my question is about hygiene.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I occasionally look after my neighbor’s two dogs.\u00a0 Recently, after walking the dogs for about an hour, I noticed that the bottoms of the dogs’ feet were cleaner than the bottoms of my shoes, even though I had stayed on relatively clean sidewalks and the dogs had wandered all over the place — through yards, flower patches, leaves, weeds, etc.\u00a0 This caused me to wonder why dogs — indeed, all animals except humans — stay surprisingly clean, despite having no access to indoor plumbing.\u00a0 Why do we humans — built, the Bible says, in God’s image — need so much papaphernalia to stay clean, while other animals do not?\u00a0 I’m not talking about cosmetics — though that subject is certainly ripe for discussion (if you have ever seen the cosmetics section of a major department store, you know what I’m talking about).\u00a0 I am also not talking about clothing — the fact that animals (dogs, cats, cows, horses, etc.) can go through all four seasons in Wisconsin without ever needing to shop for a down parka or a pair of sandals, but plenty of humans can’t.\u00a0 Yet we are, the Fundies say, perfectly designed in God’s image.<\/p>\n

Yeah, right.\u00a0<\/p>\n

OK, so let’s talk about bathing.\u00a0 For example, consider this thought experiment:\u00a0 let a dog and a four-year-old child play in the same backyard for an hour, and see which one comes back cleaner.\u00a0 I challenge any of you to identify a child who would return cleaner that the dog.<\/p>\n

Before anyone points out that animals *stink*, let me point out that if humans go without bathing, then we will stink even more than most other animals.\u00a0 Indeed, my neighbors’ two dogs can go without bathing for a week or longer and still smell fine, but I challenge you to identify any human for whom the same is true.<\/p>\n

Which brings me back to the title of this post:\u00a0 are there bathtubs in heaven?\u00a0 I shudder to think what heaven would smell like after an few thousand years if nobody ever takes a bath.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In an earlier post, I wondered how God is going to entertain his followers up in heaven for all eternity, especially those who enjoy the less ethereal forms of entertainment (like jet skis).\u00a0 Now, my question is about hygiene.\u00a0 I occasionally look after my neighbor’s two dogs.\u00a0 Recently, after walking the dogs for about an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1236\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}