H/T: Strange Maps. Click on the map for a larger image. Finally we can know how everything will end up!
“Heaven is a place,” sang the Talking Heads, “where nothing ever happens.” Not so in this version of the Afterlife. This is what Heaven might have looked like in the Divina Commedia had Dante not been a medieval Italian intellectual, but a contemporary Californian comic artist, like Malachi Ward, who drew this map.
In Ward’s vision, Heaven is a place very similar to your local amusement park. Only better: it never closes, you don’t ever have to leave!
Beyond the Pearly Gates (emblazoned with the slogan You Did It!) is a Nu-Body Machine (1), instantly providing everybody with the body they’ve been trying to shape into while still alive. Catholics are welcome to Heaven, but are confined to a small section next to the entrance (2) where they can indulge their semi-idolatrous tendencies at the Throne of Mary (3). Others can try their hand (and their wings) at Angel Boot Camp (4), which is “great for Pentecostals and Charismatics.”
Those less inclined towards spiritual war could go for the snack bar (5), the marital coitus castle (6), the go carts (7), the dinosaur petting zoo (8) or Joab’s candy shop (9). Joab, a nephew of King David and eventually killed at his behest, was mainly known for his martial exploits, not for his sweet tooth.
Evil is not completely out of view in this Heaven: in fact, the Damned Viewer (10) allows you to visually check up on “Adolf Hitler, your philandering boss, the smug atheist next door and all the vile people you hate” get their comeuppance in the ‘other’, decidedly less amusing place. Maybe in Hell there’s a similar viewer, showing the Throne of God and Jesus (11) and the place where people can line up to sit, as if he were a giant Santa, on God’s lap.
And there’s more. Go to Family Land to chew the fat with pre-deceased loved ones (but wouldn’t you eventually bump into them anyway elsewhere in the park?). Visit the Arena of Answers, where the Illuminatron will tell you who really shot JFK, RFK and MLK. Go to Memory Land to relive your own finest moments or, if your existence was less than extraordinary, to Fantasy Land to relive somebody else’s. In the Hall of Heroes, visit with Abraham Lincoln, Moses and Princess Diana (among others). Visit America Land, where it’s always Memorial or Veterans’ Day.
flying.farther 
They forgot Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz’s Lazer Tag. Otherwise it’s everything the Bible says heaven will be like.
Serious question: Is there anything approaching an explicit biblical reference to souls “going to heaven,” or is the notion all by induction from a handful of NT verses?
Theres a few verses and then the subculture runs with it (similar to stuff about angels and demons), but the thing is, theres a lot more verses about the earth created anew. I go with NT Wright on this, “Heaven is important but it isn’t the end of the world.”
Awesome.
Love your map of heaven. I recently read a book that you would DEFINITELY like “Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates”. You’ll love it!
Please take a look at my blog when you get a chance, too! thanks
Hilarious! Looks like Jesus is on the left hand of the father, though!
Damned Viewer:
What kind of person thinks part of their eternal bliss would be to watch their enemies suffer? That seems more like a devil’s activity than an angel’s.
And what’s the atheist’s crime– being smug??
You’re so offended that he was wrong about God that you look forward to seeing him burn in Hell?
Isn’t that the epitome of smugness??
This is exactly the kind of thinking that pushes atheists away from religion.
…wha? You do realize that this map is a satyrical take on popular conceptions of Heaven, right? Never mind that this points to an even greater problem: an incorrect reading of Christian scripture. To quote N.T. Wright again, “Heaven is great and all, but it isn’t the end of the world.”