The Story of God Read online

  For a moment, God wondered whether what Lot had done, offering his virgin daughters to a rape-mob, was in any way “wrong.” No, he decided, it was not. Lot knew all these men were homosexuals and wouldn’t accept his offer, therefore it was not wrong. “It’s not the homosexuals who want those girls,” God chuckled to himself, “it’s Lot himself!” And he would have them too!

  God looked back down at Sodom. He’d taken his eye off it for a moment while he was thinking about Lot; the situation had deteriorated. The homosexual rapists were just about to break into Lot’s house. (Gen. 19:9) “Time to move,” God said to himself. He aimed a finger downward and instantly there was a blinding flash of light. (Gen. 19:11) The rapists staggered around, rubbing their eyes, suddenly helpless.

  Lot grabbed his family and they rushed away. The angels told them not to look back (God wasn’t totally sure why he didn’t want them to look back; he just didn’t, that’s all), and when Lot’s wife did look back, God took this opportunity to turn her into salt. (Gen. 19:26) It looked fantastic, better than he could have hoped—a bright white human statue, mouth agape, eyes wide. “A salty picture of terror,” God thought to himself. (In years to come, animals would lick the salt sculpture down to nothing, which was both annoying and amusing to God.)

  God sent holy fire down from the sky and burned up Sodom and Gomorrah and all the homosexuals who lived there. (Gen. 19:24) (“So much for our little ‘deal,’” he smirked, thinking of Abraham.) It had been awhile since he had killed a bunch of humans at one time—since the flood really. As he watched all those sinners burn, shrieking and moaning in agony, God thought to himself, “This is good. This is what they deserve.” He liked burning people—it was visual and exciting in a way that drowning them was not. Hell, he decided, when it was up and running, would be like this, except that rather than burning for 30 or 40 seconds, the wicked would burn forever. It was a delicious idea. Two little girls ran past, on fire. God stroked his mighty chin, wondering, did they have it coming too? Yes—yes, they did.

  Lot and his daughters escaped to a cave where the old man had sex with both girls and impregnated them. Lot apparently felt slightly uncomfortable about what happened because he tried to lie and say it was the girls’ idea, not his. (Gen. 19:32) “They got me drunk, I had no idea what was happening,” he lied. “They told me that there were no other men on earth!” Which was ridiculous, God knew that very well; other than Sodom and Gomorrah, there were towns full of men everywhere! Lot had specifically asked for permission to take the girls to the next town! (Gen. 19:20) But God decided to let Lot get away with the story because, really … who cares? He had just wiped out the most abhorrent sin there was, homosexuality; what did he care if creepy old Lot wanted to have sex with his own daughters? As usual, God had no idea what their names were. (Gen. 19:31) “Women are so utterly boring to me!” he said to himself, amused. The sons that would result from these pregnancies, though, Moab and Ben-ami (“I always know the boys’ names,” God noted proudly to himself) would lead nations! That’s how “wrong” Lot’s behavior was! (Gen. 19:37–38)

  When the two male angels returned to heaven, God looked at them and nodded, “well done.” They really were distractingly handsome.

  (A bit later, God got Abraham back for questioning his wisdom. “Kill your son, Isaac,” he told him. God could barely keep a straight face at the old man’s shocked reaction. God wasn’t going to actually allow Isaac to be killed, obviously; the boy was quite important to him, in fact—but he was going to have fun with this practical joke, and he took it all the way. Abraham had the knife in the air, poised over his son, when God finally sent an angel down to stop him. “Abraham looked like he was going to shit his pants, it was hilarious!” God roared to some angels. “And I’ll tell you something else too: He never talked back to me again!”)

  Chapter Nine

  Time passed. Humans came and went. God, having, he felt, wiped out sin when he incinerated Sodom and Gomorrah, took a step back. “Let the humans figure things out for themselves for a while,” he thought. Of course he knew they wouldn’t figure things out, but he decided to let them try. (The truth was, he hadn’t even wiped out towns full of homosexual rapists, it turned out!) (Jud. 19:22) Also, he had other things to work on. Hell, for instance, which was coming along nicely. It really was going to be spectacularly horrible. Heaven too. God’s home in the sky had started out as basically nothingness floating over water. Boooo-ring.

  Now God had begun to work on it and as he did, he realized that he had very specific tastes, and that he loved it. It was gaudy and colorful and fabulous. Heaven was becoming the wonderful home he’d always wanted for himself. Designing and decorating it took a lot of time and effort, though. At the center of things, there was a massive marble sculpture of God, one hand raised, the other on his hip, a stern look on his face. It was marvelous. There were also lots and lots of mirrors; God loved mirrors. There were, as well, a number of heroic portrait paintings of God hanging in midair. Most of them had been painted by angels, who were not particularly gifted artists (most of them, God much later realized, were mildly retarded), but no matter, they were still excellent.

  One of the few times God looked down at what was happening on earth, he saw a man named Onan, who refused to impregnate his sister-in-law, pulling out before he ejaculated. (Gen. 38:9) This was absolutely unacceptable! Sperm was precious stuff, not to be spilled on the ground! Onan would also sometimes masturbate, which God was infuriated by. “That glorious seed is not to be wasted!” he nearly shouted as he watched Onan “whack off.” God killed Onan, obviously. (Gen. 38:10)

  After several hundred years of working on heaven, as well as traveling around the universe he’d created (“not much,” he thought to himself), God felt reenergized, ready to reengage with mankind. It was around this time that a human being came along who God liked in a wholly different way than any he’d known before. The man’s name was Moses, and he was smart, tough, ambitious, and loyal. For the first time, God thought to himself, “This is a guy I’d like to be friends with.” Moses, naturally, felt the same way, and so a beautiful friendship was born. “This guy understands me,” God would think to himself. “I can express myself with him! I can tell him exactly how I want my people to act!”

  Their friendship had gotten off to a very rocky start. Moses had not cut off his own son’s foreskin, as God had demanded, and God was furious about it. “I like Moses very much, but that foreskin of his son’s has to go,” he had thought. God hated foreskins. “My biggest mistake,” he had called them. “I should send Moses a message,” God had thought. “Get your son circumcised immediately.” Yes, that was the obvious thing for him to do. But then God shook his head violently. “No. I’m going to kill Moses,” he had suddenly decided. (Ex. 4:24) “I like him and I want to be friends with him, but this foreskin thing is too much. I’m going to beat him to death with my bare hands.”

  God flew down to earth and walked toward his peoples’ camp. It was night, very dark. There were a few small fires burning, a few quiet voices. God stomped toward the camp, clenching his fists. Suddenly he stopped, feeling his foot sink into something soft and squishy. The smell hit him. He looked down. It was human poo! God cursed; he had to remember to command the humans to bury their poo! (Deut. 23:14–15) It was all over his sandal! God was even more furious now. He hated the humans at this moment, the way they pooped on the ground, the way they disobeyed him, the way they didn’t remove their foreskins!

  God saw someone walking toward him from the camp. It was Moses! God charged him and tackled him, knocking him to the ground with a heavy thud. Moses looked up, amazed. “God?” he managed, before God punched him in the face, hard. Moses’ head spun to one side, his eyes rolled, a trickle of blood ran out of his nose. God hit him again in the mouth, crack! Moses’ lip split; blood ran between his teeth. “What are you doing?” Moses whispered, before God grabbed him by the throat and started to squeeze. “I’m going to kill you, Moses,” he said b
etween clenched teeth. He slowly throttled Moses, feeling the life ebb out of him. God hesitated. Was he really going to kill Moses, the future lawgiver, just because his son still had a foreskin? Yes, he was, definitely. Moses’ eyes bugged out, his face was purple, he was nearly dead.

  Then God heard frantic footsteps rushing toward him and a woman’s voice screaming “wait, WAIT!” As God pulled back for a second and Moses sucked in a desperate breath, his wife, Zipporah, her son in her arms, rushed between her husband and God. Wielding a sharp rock, she very quickly and efficiently proceeded to yank up her son’s little robe and cut off his foreskin! (Ex. 4:25) God sat back, out of breath, amazed at Zipporah’s actions. Somehow, from inside their tent, she had grasped that God was throttling her husband to death because their son still had a foreskin. Grabbing a rock (“a rock,” God marveled), she had rushed out and, in near darkness, cut the wailing baby’s foreskin off! She had then rubbed the bloody foreskin against Moses’ leg and said to him, “Now you are truly a bridegroom of blood.” God got up and, without a word, walked back into the desert night, trying to understand Zipporah’s odd remark but failing. Then he flew up to heaven and cleaned the last bit of shit out of his sandal.

  God was glad Moses was still alive. In Moses, he finally had someone he could open up to—someone he could share his desires for his people with and also trust to communicate that vision to others. “I could just appear in the sky, I suppose,” God mused to himself. “Talk to all of them at once.” It wasn’t a bad idea exactly—but he didn’t want to do it. He wanted to talk to one person, Moses, and then have him talk to all the other people. It just felt better that way, and by this point God had learned to not second guess himself.

  Moses traveled back to Egypt, and this gave God the chance to mess with Pharaoh again. He had enjoyed causing plagues back in Abraham’s day, “but that was nothing,” God grinned to himself. “This time, Pharaoh is really going to pay.” (“For what?” popped into his head. “For not believing in me,” came the instant response, followed a second later by, “Exactly according to my plan!”)

  God pondered how he would torment Pharaoh. “If he will not allow my people to worship me—which he won’t, I will see to it that he doesn’t!—(God could control Pharaoh’s mind and make him do whatever he wanted, “like a puppet,” he chuckled to himself) (Ex. 7:3)—then I will plague him with … hmm, what?” God stroked his chin, thinking of the worst things he could send at Pharaoh. Snakes? Wasps? Spiders? Suddenly he snapped his fingers; “I have it!” he exclaimed. “I will send a plague of frogs at Pharaoh!” (Ex. 7:27) God despised frogs—their slimy skin, popped out eyes, and hideous croaking. God would send them into Pharaoh’s palace. That would teach him!

  The plague of frogs worked brilliantly, Pharaoh begged to have the frogs removed. (Ex. 8:4) God told Moses to warn Pharaoh that the plagues were just beginning. “I could kill you if I wanted to,” God had Moses tell Pharaoh. “The only reason I don’t is because I want you to see my power, so I will become more famous!” (Ex. 9:16) God was slightly surprised by what he’d just said. He wanted to be famous? He was the creator of the entire universe, why would “fame” matter to him? Immediately God moved on. “So I want fame, so what?”

  Pharaoh softened a little; he was about to let God’s people do what they wanted. But that was no good. God wanted to keep punishing Pharaoh; he loved punishing him; he had no interest in ending what he by now called “my little hurting game.” So every single time Pharaoh came close to doing exactly what God demanded of him, God hardened his heart and forced him not to do it! (Ex. 10:1, 10:20, 10:27, 11:10, 14:4, 14:8) For a moment, God considered the idea of “free will.” That is, did humans have it? If God could mind-control Pharaoh, the most powerful man in the world, who couldn’t he control? Answer: No one—he controlled everyone. But if the humans weren’t free, if he was controlling them, then on what basis was he punishing them? “Am I not the puppeteer who hates his own puppets?” God asked himself, then quickly answered: “Indeed I do hate them and I’ll tell you why: Because they are wicked!” Problem solved.

  “Now I will kill all the firstborn Egyptian children,” God thought to himself, tickled by the idea. (Ex. 11:4–5) Pharaoh obviously wanted to relent by this time, but God wouldn’t let him. God had his angels sneak into all the Egyptian houses and smother the children. (Ex. 12:29) He also had a few firstborn cows killed. (Unfortunately, the meat went bad by the time the angels got it back to heaven.)

  God’s “Operation Mass-Child-Murder” was a huge success. Pharaoh decided to let God’s people go, which was exactly what Moses had been asking for. “I’ll accept the victory,” God thought at first—then changed his mind. “For one thing, I am not quite famous enough yet,” he thought. “For another thing, I freaking love punishing Pharaoh and I am still not ready to be done.” God made his Pharaoh-puppet pursue the Hebrews toward the Red Sea. Looking down, he rubbed his hands together in anticipation. “Double back,” God told Moses. “Trick Pharaoh into thinking you’re lost, so that he will attack you.” (Ex. 14:1–4) Which is exactly what happened. God parted the sea, allowing his people to cross. Then, when the Egyptians pursued them, he “unparted” it, drowning them all! (Ex. 14:27–28) It was fantastic, like the old days. “I’d forgotten how much I enjoy drowning people,” God nodded to himself.

  God considered telling Moses to return to Egypt yet again, so that he could torment Pharaoh some more; he had an idea that pertained to swollen anuses that he was anxious to try out. But he decided he had more important work to do with his people.

  It was time to lay down the law.

  Chapter Ten

  God started with the most important thing: Number one—Do not worship any god other than me. (“I could stop there, honestly,” he thought to himself, but decided to go on.) Number two—Really don’t worship any other gods. Number three—Don’t use my name in vain. (Ex. 20:3–7)

  After that, God thought for a minute. What else did he have? Oh, here was one: Number four—Take one day a week off, just like I did when I made the universe. What else? Several came in a rush now: Number five—Respect your parents; Number six—Don’t kill people; Number seven—No sex outside marriage; Number eight—Don’t steal; Number nine—Don’t lie, and …. What was the last one? Don’t rape women? No, not that. Don’t keep people as slaves? No. Don’t abuse children or animals? No no no. Later, God would remember that what he had meant to say was: Number ten—Don’t eat mice (Lev. 10:29)—but it had slipped his mind, so he said “Don’t be jealous of each other” instead. Which was fine too. (Ex. 20:4–14)

  And that was it, he was done. God sat back and crossed his arms, quite confident that these ten rules (“commandments,” he quickly corrected himself) would be all the guidance his people would need. Then, annoyingly, who should show up to talk about how hell was coming along but Satan. And, as always, he asked ridiculous questions. “Don’t you think they already knew you didn’t want them to worship any other gods?” he asked.

  “So what if they did, Satan? I was clarifying,” God said, exasperated. “Besides, it wasn’t all about me. I gave them some excellent laws! Respect your parents, for instance.”

  “Don’t they do that already?”

  “What?”

  “Don’t they already respect their parents? Don’t human beings naturally do that?”

  “What are you driving at, Satan?”

  “Aren’t you just ‘commanding’ them to do things they already do?”

  God was incensed by this line of questioning. He had felt so confident before Satan arrived, but now … his body tightened as Satan continued, smiling pleasantly.

  “The same with ‘don’t kill’ and ‘don’t steal.’ Don’t they already know those things are wrong?”

  “Not until my commandments they didn’t!”

  “Also, you tell them not to kill now, but aren’t you going to want them to kill quite soon?” (Num. 31:37)

  God glared at Satan, deeply irritated by his presumptio
ns. His Ten Commandments were excellent, he knew that, and now Satan was mocking them. “I really should destroy him right here, right now,” God thought to himself. He was thinking of how he’d do it—throttle him?—impale him?—but then he had second thoughts. He took a breath, nodded, smiled coolly. “How is hell coming along?” he asked.

  “A bit slower than expected,” Satan said. “It won’t be ready for another hundred earth years.”

  “But it’s going to be horrible?”

  “Extremely horrible.”

  “I want it to be excruciating for them—agonizing.”

  “It will be.”

  “Good, good.”

  There was a strained pause. God and Satan looked at each other; God shifted his weight a little. Why did he always have the awful feeling that Satan was laughing at him? Like he saw something and was amused by it. Which was infuriating. He was God, he demanded respect and obedience, he had created Satan and he was not going to be mocked by him. God nodded brusquely. “You may go now.”

  Satan looked at God, nodded, and turned away without saying another word. As God watched him go, he seethed. “His criticism of my Ten Commandments was ridiculous.” But he did start thinking of other laws for the humans. “Only to supplement what I already told them,” he told himself.

  “When a man sells his daughter as a slave,” God told Moses soon thereafter, “she should not be freed as male slaves are.” (Ex. 21:7) It was a good law, God thought. But there was a part of him that briefly wondered: “Shouldn’t I tell Moses that it’s wrong for a father to sell his daughter as a slave in the first place?” He thought this over for a moment. Was it wrong for a father to sell his daughter as a slave? God was “laying down the law” here and he wanted to get it right (which he knew he would, in any case, because he was perfect), so he asked himself again, “Is there anything wrong with a father selling his daughter as a slave?” The answer came quickly: There was nothing wrong with it, nothing in the least! “We’re talking about girls here,” God chuckled to himself.