Are you afraid of hell?
Who fears it more? The American child who imagines the flames?
Or sophisticated grownups along the Thames,
Too sophisticated to believe
In what the metaphor is saying—
And therefore they grieve?
Religion is misinterpreted by sophisticate and child alike.
Science is what I know I don’t know,
But religion is what I know and like:
If you hurt me, wrong will come to you,
Or it already has—and that’s why
You hurt me. Look at the sky:
Science explains how it’s blue,
But beyond that and that and that is you
And after that, well,
There might be hell
If you didn’t treat me well—
Especially if you are not a child,
But still acted wild.