SOUNDING OFF:

“A fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God,’” writes the psalmist.

George Carlin loved to tweak God’s beard. But God — not Carlin — had the last laugh, though, doubtless for both, it was a heart-wrenching moment.

The counterculture comedian died after suffering a heart attack. He took his final breath at St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica.

Oh to have been a fly on the pearly gates when Carlin and God met face-to-face. Each of us faces a similar private rendezvous with the deity of the cosmos at some future date, and we’ll be ushered into his presence “in puris naturalibus.”

If that prospect doesn’t cause the hair on your neck to stand up, then it’s my guess you’re either comatose or incapable of fogging a mirror!

Carlin employed graphic scatological terms in deriding ancient sacred texts and beliefs. His favorite target of ridicule was orthodox Christianity. Christianity, he claimed, is filled with “false promises and exaggerated claims” and is the “greatest [bovine scatology] story ever told.”

He ridiculed God as being the “invisible man who lives in the sky,” as well as a “spooky, incompetent father figure.” Well, just days ago he received his formal introduction to Mr. Spooky.

The Bible, Carlin often conceded, does contain certain “moral lessons and literary qualities,” but he likened it to nothing more than a fairy tale, at the level of “The Three Little Pigs” or “Little Red Riding Hood.”

Carlin never minced words. Just as there’s no Humpty Dumpty, he asserted with confidence, there’s also no God. “None. Not one. Never has been.”

“If there is a God,” he would say with bravado to his audiences, “may he strike this audience dead!” That line always elicited nervous laughter. “See? Nothing happened. Nothing happened. Everybody’s OK. All right, tell you what, I’ll raise the stakes a little bit. If there is a God, may he strike me dead. See? Nothing happened.”

Nothing, that is, until Sunday. Then, George Carlin collapsed and met his maker. Thomas à Kempis, a 15th century monk, wisely stated, “Blessed is he who has the hour of death always before his eyes and daily prepares for it. Have you ever seen anyone die? You too will travel that same road!

“Always think of death! Live your present life in such a way that at death’s hour you will be filled with joy and not overcome by panic. Die to the world now, and you will later live with Christ.”

Sunday, when Carlin felt the onset of chest pains, did he experience joy or panic? We can’t know.

To my mind, the thoughts of a medieval mystic are superior — and certainly more comforting — to the fumings of a 21st century cynic. I’ll stake my future on the one who rose from the dead, not the three little pigs.

JIM CARNETT lives in Costa Mesa.