... but I had to watch. To this day, my memory of the event involves the entire room being lit with a really dim red light while it was happening, kind of like in an office building when the electricity goes out. That seems highly unlikely, in retrospect, but when I picture it in my mind, that's still exactly how I see it.

From then on, organized religion just wasn't a thing that stuck with me. With so many choices and so many people saying their choice is correct, my instinct was always to just assume everyone was wrong and that I'd have to come to my own conclusions. I accept that this might not work for everybody, though. Sometimes, people need structure and order and discipline in their lives. You need someone to follow. So, because I give zero fucks which book you do or don't believe, you can take it as seriously as any other recommendation when I say that, this season, maybe consider switching to Satan. Here are a few reasons why ...

The idea of a figure coming down from the sky and delivering knowledge to mankind isn't unique to Christianity. It turns up in all sorts of cultures and mythologies. Ancient Greece, for example, has Prometheus, a titan who worked closely with Zeus to do all kinds of meaningful and movie-worthy shit until he was ultimately punished for stealing knowledge from the gods and sharing it with mankind. History hasn't exactly painted him as a bad guy for his transgressions, no matter how much Ridley Scott dragged his name through the mud.

Or how about Kukulkan, the "serpent deity" sometimes associated with Maya and Aztec cultures?

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Same basic story: works closely with the gods, delivers knowledge and information and the basic tools of civilization to mankind, war ensues. There are even some stories that involve him becoming too prideful about all his beauty and power and ultimately losing both as a result.

If that sounds familiar it's probably because it's not at all unlike what happened to Satan in his more radio-friendly days when he was still called Lucifer. Depending on what point in history we're talking, the word "Lucifer" translates to "bringer of light."

You guys like light, don't you? Well, thank Satan for it. Speaking of that ...

It's also an apt description of Satan in his pre-fall, Lucifer days. He eventually became too full of himself and lost his place among God's elite. Even people who abide by the most corporate versions of Christianity agree on that part, but what happened next seems a lot less clear.

As we we've covered previously on Cracked, everything from those wacky hooves and horns to his famous trident, the Flavor Flav clock of Christianity, are all attributes we've given to Satan over the years.

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All we really know about what he looks like comes from that description of Lucifer. The part where he loses his boyish good looks upon being cast down to roam the Earth is just kind of assumed.

Well, who's to say he didn't just stay that pretty on Earth? He actually returns to Heaven in the book of Job, where he works social experiment shenanigans in tandem with God himself like a couple of power-drunk buddy cops. "God don't like ugly" is a basic tenet of every religion. It's a safe bet Satan was still a looker when God gave him the go-ahead to make Job's life a living hell.

So, if you believe all that shit, is it such a stretch to believe that, rather than morphing into a snarling beast, Satan still looks as Rob Lowe as ever?

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You certainly can't rule it out, because, you know, nobody can prove any of this shit. It's certainly something to consider when deciding which path is right for you, though.

As we've also covered previously on Cracked, our most commonly accepted vision of hell is complete bullshit. All of that stuff about Satan holding court over a room full of fire and brimstone and eternally tormented abortion doctors carrying demon babies to full term comes mostly from works of fiction like Dante's Inferno. "Hellfire" doesn't actually appear until Revelations, and it's no more pleasant for Satan than anyone else.

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The word "hell" is mentioned 54 times throughout the Bible, and only 12 of those times does it refer to a place that's on fire, and it was likely referring to an actual place where people burned things, like trash and dead animals. So, a landfill, basically, and in those instances it was being used as a comparison to describe the fire that eventually consumes the Earth.

In most cases, though, "hell" refers to a grave or place of darkness. Well, a lot of us definitely go there when we die, if nothing else. As for immediately heading to a fiery place of punishment to suffer for eternity, that's not explicitly stated in the Bible either. It is said at one point that God has the means to hold the unjust back until they can be punished with everyone else when judgment day finally arrives. It's at that point when people start getting judged and the hellfire comes raining down. Until then, if you're basing your beliefs on what's actually written in the Bible, a world history's worth of people are either in Heaven right now or waiting in a dark box to find out if they make it or if they die a second, possibly more horrific death.

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So, in that sense, the choices you make come down to a matter of whether you want to go to Heaven or just die for good at some point. Not quite as harrowing of a choice as Heaven versus an eternity of cruel and unusual punishment. At this point, to be completely honest, what I need to know is what happens when you're in that box? Like, do you know you're just stuck in a box forever like some kind of straight-to-streaming sequel of the underrated Ryan Reynolds spirit-crusher Buried? If so, that's close enough to hell for me. I'd like it noted right now that I want to be cremated and placed in an urn near the television of someone with tastes similar to mine until we sort out where I'm going. It shouldn't be an issue for me either way, though.

So, when one of the hype-men or whatever they're called in that kind of church approached to ask if I'd be up for being saved, I literally had nothing to lose except for the approximate amount of time it would take me to smoke a cigarette, which I also really wanted to do at that particular moment. I didn't, though, and ... boom. It's in the book. That was easy. It took less time than I spent getting my eyebrow pierced in high school, and I regret it way less.

Of course, stumbling into a tiny church in Mazomanie, Wisconsin, in the midst of a weed stupor, isn't the kind of soul lottery you're all going to win. If you want to shore up your afterlife bunker with the minimum amount of work possible, I'd suggest just doing it online, which is also apparently an option. You don't even have to involve other people, except the Lord, naturally. Read a few lines and enjoy your guilt-free existence. Does that speak to the forgiving nature of God or the complete and total triviality of the "rules" of most organized religions?

Ha! I know, right? Now let's get back to hailing Satan.