Hell, As Hot

So it's got to be about 98 degrees outside today. If 666 is the most evil number in existence, 98 must be the second-most evil. Think about it... it's a terrible temperature for the weather. The temperature of the human body is approximately 98 degrees, and we can be really mean to each other. And who can forget (but would really like to!) the boy band 98 Degrees?! Goodness...Which leads me to thinking. Today, I heard someone use the term "hot as hell" to describe our current weather pattern. And this led to the thought, you know, the current translations of the Bible must have been written by northerners. "Hot as hell" is a very appropriate descriptor, for to us, heat is a stifling and unbearable proposition, a climate reserved for reptiles... reptiles not unlike the snake in the Garden of Eden. We northerners have a very clear idea of the torment afforded us by hot weather, and therefore have a healthy fear of hell. In contrast, such references to the flames of hell, lakes of fire, and other ideas of hell being a hot place are simply lost on residents of warmer, more southerly climes. To them, it sounds like home. So how does one reach the souls of folks who are simply unaffected by the thought of being thrown into a lake of fire?I propose the creation of climate-specific translations of the Bible. Imagine being a resident of, say, the southern United States, a region where the temperature rarely dips below 80 degrees. You're handed a Bible, the New Southern Standard Version, and you begin reading that the wages of sin is death, and death is being thrown into an eternal lake of ice water? Or the story about how Eve was tempted in the Garden by a cunning and evil polar bear? Or the story of Shadrach, Mishech and Abednego, the triumvirate of martyrs whose horrific punishment was to be placed in the kingdom's largest deep-freezer? It's enough to bring even the hardest-core Floridian to his or her knees! ...which is the general idea, saving all of humanity in the most climatologically-correct manner possible.I am SO going to freeze in an ocean of icebergs for this one...