The Church of Best Values

The worse things get, the better the deal looks. That’s the deal with Belial. Belial, the Demon of Deals.

Now, the followers of Belial prefer that Belial be called a God. “The God of Deals” is what they call him, officially. In English, anyway.

“The God of Deals” is what they write on the pamphlets and say on TV, and there are some very comfortable theologians who, for large sums of money, will argue in court that The Church of Best Values is not a cult.

“It is a religion,” they say. They don’t use contractions like you and I, and they use a lot of big words like “establishmentarianism.” These theologians know that judges like hearing big words, it makes them feel like their Ivy League educations were worth the family fortune.

Thanks to those theologians and some very supportive Supreme Court Justices, the Cult of the Blood Pact, Beloved of Belial, became known as the Church of Best Values.

This was a very successful rebranding and everyone involved in it died due to mysterious circumstances related to unimaginable material wealth and pleasure.

“Mysterious circumstances related to unimaginable material wealth and pleasure.” That’s the good stuff, the deaths that never end up in a history book.

History books, for example, will tell you Catherine the Great didn’t REALLY die from fucking a horse. Their truth is far more wholesome and existentially horrifying than mere horse-fuckery, and did not involve the Cult of the Blood Pact, nor any followers of Belial, let alone the Beloved.

Catherine the Great would never have involved the Cult of the Blood Pact, Beloved of Belial, because, quite frankly, she could afford better cults.

Many people - the kind of people with the look of a hunted jackrabbit in an open field - know enough theology, or at least read enough Dungeons and Dragons books, to know that Belial is a Demon. This is, technically, true, but these people have trouble keeping jobs and nobody ever listens to them.

But the Church of Best Values lives up to the name. All you have to do is sign up. Sign up, pay some fees here and there, it’s all based on what you can afford. Belial is far more fair than any tax code, and certainly more affordable than “ten percent.”

Sure, there’s a chance that you’ll be Recalled, but the more people that sign up, the less that chance, right? Get out there and prosthelytize. Belial helps others if you help them first.

And being Recalled is obviously a good deal. It wouldn’t be the Church of Best Values if it didn’t offer a really good deal.

Let’s face it - everyone gets recalled at some point, and most of them cannot afford the George the V treatment, which is where the Church of Best Values comes in. Not by offering a Recall to everyone, but by offering a really good Recall to the people who get lucky in the lottery.

“Lucky?” Of course you’re lucky to get chosen. It’s what you want, anyway - a luxurious year, pampering and hedonism, a massive life insurance policy, a free funeral (if there were anything to bury) and depending on your plan, the possibility of a small plaque or monument somewhere quiet and out of the way for your now-wealthy family to go and visit.

Normally I would say “say what you want about the Church of Best Values,” but if you’ve joined up and signed the arbitration agreement, you may want to think twice before you do that. But, despite your personal opinions about jagged knives and wicked curved claws like gleaming onyx scimitars, wreathed in hellfire, you have to admit that the church lives up to her name.