The Story of God Read online

  More ideas started coming to God. “If a child insults his mother or father, he should be put to death,” he told Moses. (Ex. 21:17) Another good law—strong and fierce and hard. He’d already stated that children should respect their parents, but he hadn’t made clear what the punishment would be if they didn’t. Now he had: Death. Again, God had brief second thoughts. Was there something … hmm … unreasonable about this law? No, not at all. Authority mattered and parents were earthly authorities—or fathers were anyway (maybe it was okay to insult mothers?), and anyone who criticized authority should be killed. This seemed obvious to God. “How should they be killed?” God asked himself, stroking his chin—then nodded, knowing the answer: Throw rocks at their heads. (Deut. 21:21)

  God was on a roll now. “When an ox gores a person to death, the ox should be stoned,” he told Moses. (Ex. 21:28) Again—obvious. The ox had done something wicked and needed to be punished for it. But again, God hesitated for a second. Was an ox capable of the kind of moral transgression that required “punishment?” Why not just slaughter it? Why stone it to death? “Because,” God announced, “some oxen choose to gore people to death!” Along the same lines, all those animals that were choosing to have sex with humans, or even thinking about it? They needed to be stoned too! Damned slutty goats, damned lascivious donkeys! They all had bloodguilt upon them! (Lev. 20:16)

  Now God began to feel a different impulse. “Enough about them,” he found himself thinking. “I want to talk about me, I want to tell Moses what I want!”

  God had been working on heaven for awhile and it was coming along fantastically well; a work-in-progress, sure, but you could see how utterly amazing it was going to be. Now God turned his sights to earth. It had been so drab up to this point; God wanted it to be brighter, more colorful and spectacular. “I know exactly how I want my temple to look.” God told Moses to demand that people bring him gifts: Gold, silver, copper, linen, fur, oils, spices, incense, pretty rocks—the works. (Ex. 25:2)

  God had created the Grand Canyon and Mount Everest, not to mention Saturn (none of which he seemed to know existed, but never mind that), so in a way he felt a bit weird asking for incense and rocks. But that feeling didn’t last long. He liked these things. They were the finest things earth had to offer and he would use them to have the humans create a shrine to him that would be absolutely breathtaking. God knew that Satan would describe his taste as ostentatious and showy. He didn’t care at all. “Let him think I have the taste of a fruity old queen,” he said. “What do I care?” And it was true, he didn’t, not in the least. He liked gold balls and pomegranate blue fabric and cherubs and lots of incense—and so what? (Ex. 25:18, 28:33–34)

  It felt so good, so liberating. God had worked hard creating the universe, then spent a lot of time and energy coming up with perfect laws for his humans to live by. Which was all rewarding, sure—but what about him, what about his needs? God felt that he was, in some deeply symbolic sense, “coming out of a closet,” and it felt wonderful. All along, God now realized, he had wanted two things: Fabulousness and spectacle! Now, finally, he was getting them.

  God was feeling more and more comfortable with expressing himself now. (“I was so repressed,” he fretted briefly before shrugging it off. “But not anymore!”) “I’m even going to tell Moses exactly how I want meat grilled! I will tell him what kind of flour to use and what kind of oil—I will even tell him what kind of wine to serve it with!” (Ex. 29:40, Num. 15:7)

  God was happy. His people were finally giving him what he wanted: A fancy shrine and well-cooked meat. All was well. Or as well as it could be, given that humans—even his humans—were essentially evil and corrupt creatures. He probably should have drowned them all in the flood—but oh well, he didn’t, and now he’d promised not to.

  Chapter Eleven

  Moses was a good friend. Ever since their rocky start, when God had tried to kill him, things had gone really well between them. God felt comfortable with Moses, at ease. For the first time, he felt understood. Moses’ brother Aaron, though? Well, he was a different story. Aaron was tough enough—a good disciplinarian and fighter. But he was kind of an idiot too.

  What had been God’s first commandment, his very first? “Do not worship other gods.” So what did Aaron do while God and Moses were up in the hills, talking? He melted down a bunch of gold (“which really should have been used for my temple,” God fumed) and created a golden cow to worship! (Ex. 32:2–4) “I should kill Aaron,” God thought. “No, wait—I should kill all of them.” And he was about to do it too, he really was (Ex. 32:10), when Moses talked him down a little bit, as only good and trusted friends can do.

  “If you kill everybody,” Moses asked, “what will the Egyptians think of you?” (Ex. 32:12) This was an excellent question. What would they think (specifically, what would Pharaoh think) if God killed all his own people? It’s true, he could puppet the Egyptians into admiring him, but he didn’t want to do that. He wanted them to admire him for being himself, even if they were wicked and evil and destined for eternal punishment. He hadn’t worked so hard for fame to simply throw it away in such a cavalier way. So God decided not to kill the entire tribe. Moses did kill several thousand people for God, which was a good consolation prize. (Ex. 32:28) God sent a plague after that, which was satisfying too. (Ex. 32:35) “But I didn’t kill them all,” God noted to himself, feeling generous.

  A bit later, God and Moses were talking again. God had taken the shape of a cloud—he liked to do things like that—he was a bush another time (Ex. 3:4)—and he found himself saying to Moses, “The Lord, the Lord—a God compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in faithfulness and kindness.” (Ex. 34:6) Moses was silent. God felt odd for a moment. Had that sounded weird, the way he’d complimented himself in third person? He wasn’t sure. He didn’t think so. Everything he had said was true, obviously, but did it sound … insecure? What kind of God praises his own kindness and compassion in third person, he couldn’t help wondering. Then, quickly, he knew the answer to that question: The kind of God who doesn’t get enough praise and admiration from his own people, THAT’S WHO! “If they won’t talk about how compassionate I am, then I will, and if that’s insecure, then so be it!”

  Still, the little voice in his mind whispered: “But why do I feel the need to remind people that I’m God so often? Who said I wasn’t?” A disturbing thought: Was he so insecure that he doubted himself? That he somehow feared the humans were onto him and tried to maintain his position through bluster and intimidation? No. No no no.

  Moving on, God felt that he needed to clarify something important with Moses. “All fat is the Lord’s,” he told him. (Lev. 3:16) The humans had been cutting God out of his share of fat; they had been consuming it themselves and that was unacceptable, fat was his, ALL of it. (“What do you do with all that fat, God?” Satan asked him once. “Do you make candles?” God wouldn’t even dignify this with the true answer—which was that he liked to eat fat.)

  Next on the agenda, God needed to tell his people what was good for them to eat and what wasn’t. God had by this time sampled almost every kind of grilled meat there was; he considered himself something of a connoisseur. He began with what was good: Anything that lived in water was fine, unless it didn’t have fins or scales—in other words, if it wasn’t a fish. In which case it was bad—no, that wasn’t a sufficient word—he knew the right word—anything else was an abomination. (Lev. 11:12) Lobsters, for example? Abominations. Crabs? Abominations. Anything that lived in a shell? Abominations! “Why did I make them?” God briefly wondered. “Did I make them? I don’t seem to have made reptiles—is it possible that Satan made reptiles and lobsters?” God decided that it was not possible: He had made everything, and if some of the things he’d made were abominations to him—well, what of it? He liked what he liked and hated what he hated. (Still, the question—could Satan have created lobsters?—did stick in his mind for a while.)

  God moved on to birds. “You may eat
any bird you want!” he told Moses, then quickly added, “other than eagles, vultures, hawks, ravens, and bats.” (Lev. 11:19) There was an awkward pause. Had he just called bats birds? He had, yes. That was embarrassing. Obviously God knew that bats were mammals. What kind of God wouldn’t know that? He’d simply been talking too fast and out it came: “Bats are birds.” Moses didn’t say anything, he just stood there, looking down. “What should I say?” God wondered. “Should I say, ‘That thing I just said about bats being birds? Obviously that’s not correct, bats are mammals, of course. The point I was trying to make was, you know, don’t eat them. They’re abominations.’” No, it sounded weak, not like something an all-knowing and all-powerful creator would say. Could he say, “I was kidding when I said that bats were birds,” or “I was just testing you, Moses?”

  God decided not to say anything, to simply move on. So what if he’d called bats birds? It was meaningless. He moved on to insects, most of which he regarded as abominations. He’d made a lot of them (especially beetles for some unknown reason), but he mainly thought they were repulsive. None of them were good to eat, God proclaimed—before remembering a few exceptions. “You may eat locusts, crickets, and grasshoppers,” he announced to Moses. (Lev. 11:22) God had tried eating each of these bugs and found them to be surprisingly tasty and nutritious and crunchy.

  God imagined his mental checklist: Lobsters and shrimp? Abominations. Bat-birds? Same. (“Wrong! Bats aren’t birds, I know that!”) Crickets? Good eating. Was that it? No, he had some other regulations: “Don’t eat mice,” he finally got around to telling Moses. He had not actually seen any of his people eating mice, but he wasn’t taking any chances. Mice were … unclean. God liked things that were clean—like grasshoppers. The idea of his people eating filthy little mice sickened him. “Don’t eat moles either,” God told Moses (Lev. 11:29)—revolting little eyeless freaks. And lizards—do not eat lizards—they are abominations.

  God really hated unclean things like mice and, honestly? … menstruating women. (Lev. 12:2) That was not what he and Moses were talking about, he knew that, but still—menstruating women were so damned unclean. God hadn’t trusted women from the start, but this whole monthly bleeding thing—it was awful. (Not long after this, God made clear what he’d always felt was obvious: “Women are worth 60% of what men are worth,” he told Moses, thinking to himself as he said it, “which is being generous.”) (Lev. 27:3–4) God didn’t want to get stuck on the whole “menstruating women are unclean” thing—even though it was true—so he moved on to medical matters for a moment.

  Existing outside time and space, as God obviously did, he had a perfect understanding of human illness. With regard to leprosy, God advised Moses that the best treatment was to kill a bird and sprinkle its blood on the leper. (Lev. 14:5–7) As Moses wrote this down, God nodded to himself and murmured, “Right on the money, Lord.”

  God tried to get back to food—but his mind started to feel contaminated now. So many of the things he’d created were unclean: shrimp, mice, bat-birds (“stop!”), menstruating women, lepers. Yes, he’d made some things that were clean, like locusts and catfish and goats—but still—even the things that were clean so often had blemishes. God hated blemishes. He wanted perfection. “I am perfect and I created this world, so it should be perfect too!” he reasoned with impeccable logic. “Why should I have to tolerate so many blemishes?” he demanded. And not just any kind of blemish either; many of the flaws were in the worst place they could possibly be: The balls. (Lev. 22:24)

  God loved perfect balls. Perfect, hanging, unblemished balls. But they were so very rare. (“Especially in combination with a perfect, cut penis,” he murmured to himself.) There were goats that were perfect except for their balls, which were bruised, torn, cut, whatever. These goats were of zero interest to God. “I only want the ones with perfect balls!” he would demand. “I also only want to be served by men with perfect balls!” (Lev. 21:20)

  By the time he was done laying down the law, God felt confident. He had made it clear what he expected of his people, what was clean, what was unclean, the importance of perfect balls, all of it.

  “Things should fall into place nicely now,” he thought.

  Chapter Twelve

  But it was strange.

  Problems continued—bad ones: (1) Sin was back. God had tried so hard to wipe it out, drowning everyone on earth, incinerating two cities. But for some reason it was rampant once again. His people were having sex with animals now, for instance. (Lev. 18:23) And perhaps one of the reasons for that was (2) God’s people, his chosen ones, were starting to drift toward other gods. (Lev. 20:2) God hated all these made-up gods, but the one who he truly despised was Baal, the so-called sex god. People loved Baal; he was seductive, even to God’s own people. (Num. 25:1–3) Baal didn’t exist, obviously, “But if he did, I would definitely kill him,” God muttered to himself. (Much later, when God discovered that Baal actually did exist, he would kill him, along with all the other, not-made-up-as-it-turned-out gods. The moment when God shoved his knife into Baal’s gut and felt his life flow out was very rewarding.) (Isa. 26:13–14)

  “Why am I so bothered by a fictional character?” God would sometimes wonder. “I’m God, why should I be threatened by someone that doesn’t even exist? I shouldn’t be … and you know what, I’m not.” God would then sit in tense silence for awhile, fretting about this. There were moments when he couldn’t help but wonder: “Why did I create a reality that makes me so damned angry?” He was mad all the time, it seemed. His people infuriated him—they didn’t listen, they didn’t obey, they did wicked, evil things and worst of all, they worshipped that asshole, Baal.

  On top of all that, bizarre things were happening. Ghosts, for instance. God didn’t like ghosts—he didn’t like anything about them. He had created them, obviously—but now he’d forgotten why. “It must have seemed like a good idea at the time,” he reflected, “to have dead people continue to wander the earth as semitransparent, floating entities.” It must have been designed as some kind of punishment, God decided (what wasn’t?), but it hadn’t worked out the way he’d wanted. He didn’t want humans and ghosts to interact with each other. “Anyone who has a ghost,” God informed Moses, “shall be put to death.” (Lev. 20:27) “Won’t that just create more ghosts?” flashed across his mind, but he dismissed it instantly, muttering “ludicrous” to himself as he did.

  His creatures were scared of death. God knew that. Even if ghosts didn’t exist, humans would probably have made them up to comfort themselves. Humans did things like that—devising stories and characters to make themselves feel better and less afraid. It was touching in a way and for a moment, God softened. “It’s not easy being human,” he said to himself. “It’s quite frightening apparently. Death scares them terribly and they need to find ways to comfort themselves.” Still, was he supposed to just let it pass? No. Anyone who talked to a ghost needed to have large rocks hurled at their head until they were dead. It was the only thing to do.

  These problems were frustrating to God because what he wanted to be doing was giving his people advice on important matters like—well, sideburns, for instance! “You shall not destroy the side growth of your beard,” he told Moses. (Lev. 19:27) God liked sideburns—loved them, actually. Most of his angels had them and he thought they looked quite virile. “Destroying them is a sin,” God thought. That’s how he put it—not “cutting them off,” but “destroying them.” (God sometimes wondered if he would look good with sideburns. He decided he would, very much so.)

  “I also want to give them advice on buying and selling houses!” God proclaimed—and so he did. (Lev. 25:29–30) This felt, he had to admit, slightly trivial, given that he was God and all. (“Is it like Abraham Lincoln adding skin-care advice to the Gettysburg Address?” he wondered. No, that was completely wrong. For one thing, Lincoln wouldn’t even exist for another 3,000 years! For another, what if he did offer skin-care advice in the Gettysburg Address? Would that be so ba
d?)

  Again and again, maddeningly, God had to command his mulish, recalcitrant people to obey him. “If you do obey me,” he told them, “you will be untroubled by enemies, including wild animals.” (Lev. 26:6) (“Can I really promise that?” he briefly wondered.) “But if you don’t obey me …” God considered what he wanted to say to his people, then nodded, having found the perfect thing: “If you don’t obey me, I will send wild animals to eat your children.” That should do it, he thought. But just to be sure, he added “I will also make you eat your own children.” (Lev. 26:22–29)

  God smiled, thinking of how his people would react to that one. “We don’t want to eat our own children!” they would wail. Which was his point, obviously. Obey me and you won’t have to! Disobey me and you will! There was little doubt this would work; humans had zero desire to eat their own children, God knew that. But just in case they still wanted to disobey, God lowered the boom on them.

  “If you don’t obey me,” he told Moses, pausing for effect … “I will no longer savor your pleasing odors.” (Lev. 26:31) God chuckled, thinking about how that one would land.

  “Why isn’t God asking us to grill meat for him anymore?”

  “He no longer savors the smell!!”