The Trouble with God Read online

  “Everyone respects you, Lord,” the throne coos.

  God’s jaw tightens.

  “Everyone worships you.”

  “Shut up,” God whispers.

  “Everyone loves you.”

  “Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!!”

  “And that is because you are PURE GOOD.”

  “SHHUUUUUTTTTTTUUUUUUPPPPPPPP!!”

  God’s voice echoes through the empty palace for a moment—then everything is silent once again and God stares forward at nothing in particular.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Around the year 350, God hit on a spectacular idea. “I will write a new book,” he suddenly cried out. “Describing what really happened with Jesus, setting the whole story straight!” Filled with excitement, God charged into his palace and wrote furiously for several years, “on fire,” in his own words. After this new book, the Koran, had been completed, God took his time finding the exact right person to recite it to. (“Because there aren’t a lot of Abrahams, Moseses or Solomons in the world, you know what I’m saying, Gabriel?”)

  In the 400s, God took a brief liking to a man named Augustine. He had loved Augustine’s description of human life as “hell on Earth.” “Exactly right,” God had nodded to himself. What God had been less happy with was the way Augustine had turned seemingly everything into some sort of an allegory about Jesus’ life. “The ram that Abraham sacrificed did not symbolize Jesus, and creating Eve was definitely not a ‘prophecy’ about him! Sometimes I just did things, okay, Augustine?!” Also, to be blunt, God had been offended by the way Augustine had talked about what he described as “musical farts.” “That is a grotesque oxymoron!” God had barked. “Farts are not ‘musical’ in any way; they are disgusting, just like everything else that pertains to the human body!” Also, when you got right down to it, Augustine had pretty much stolen the idea of God’s infinite perfection from Plato (who was, by the way, far too gay for God, overall.)

  Then, finally, around the year 630, God found his new prophet and, oh my goodness, what a man he was! Muhammad was tall and powerfully built, a brilliant thinker and a fierce warrior. “Not scared to break a few eggs to make an omelette!” is how God had frequently described him. When God sat Muhammad down and began to present the Koran to him, he was determined from the start to leave zero room for misunderstanding. This new book was the Truth, God had quickly informed Muhammad—unambiguous, unquestionable, and absolute. “This is the Book (and God capitalized “Book” to make it obvious to Muhammad just how important it really was) that is free of doubt.” (K, 2:1) I mean, fine, God’s other, older books had technically been “perfect” too, but they had also been, in hindsight, far too open to interpretation. “I put two different creation stories right at the start of my first book! (OT, Gen. 1:1–2:4 vs 2:5–2:22) There were four different narratives about Jesus in my second book!” “But those old messages are now cancelled,” God instructed Muhammad. (K, 2:106) “They belong in the trash!”

  God had decided that the Koran (or as he liked to call it, “my definitive statement”) would be beyond criticism of any kind. Anyone who challenged this book would suffer, and badly! As for anyone who had the audacity (or frankly the foolishness) to mock this book? They would obviously be an agent of Satan and they would pay dearly for their dark alliance! God had wanted to make it crystal clear at the outset that disbelief—which he wanted, quite obviously (K, 5:48; 4:155)—would be punished harshly. “I will threaten punishment on almost every page of the Koran,” God had noted approvingly to himself. “That will make mankind stop doubting me! (Or it would, that is, if I wanted them to stop doubting me, which I obviously don’t, haha!)”

  Regarding the Jews: Yes, God had definitely spoken to them, and yes, they had certainly been his chosen people for a time. But now? They were disgraceful (K, 4:46) and God hated them. (Fine, he’d always basically hated them, but way more so now. “I’m gonna mess their faces up,” God sometimes whispered to himself.) (K, 4:47) As for the Christians? They were even worse than the Jews! Sure, God had spoken to them also, had chosen them to be his people for a while too, but they had proceeded to completely misunderstood him! The Christians had actually believed that Jesus was God’s biological son, which was obviously an absurd idea because of course he wasn’t, God didn’t need a son, God didn’t need anyone, this whole story was about God and only God! “The Jews were wicked and bad, but at least they understood that I was the center of the story, you know what I mean, Gabriel? The Christians, on the other hand (who were actually just sort of confused Jews, when you think about it), had one big idea, which turned out to be totally 100% wrong!”

  Anyway—whatever confusion had existed up to this point, well, it was about to end. The Koran, at long last, was going to bring all of mankind together. (K, 3:9) That had been a great feeling for God. Of course, those who didn’t accept the Koran would have to be killed. (K, 2:191) Or at the very least have their feet cut off. (K, 5:33) But whatever.

  The most essential thing which God had needed to clarify to Muhammad was that Jesus had not been his son. But God had felt that as long as he and Muhammad were talking, he might as well use their conversations to straighten out some other misunderstandings that had built up over the years. For instance, God now explained to Muhammad exactly what had happened at the start of the earth. It had gone like this: First of all, God had mixed semen into dirt. (K, 16:4) This wasn’t messy in the least, by the way, and here’s why: Because it was only one single drop of semen, okay? (Gazing down on all those men who later ejaculated like stallions, God had often thought to himself, “Unnecessary! Overkill!”) This sperm-mud blend had then “speed-formed” into what at first had looked like a piece of chewed-up meat (K, 22:5), but had then fairly quickly turned into an adult human male.

  God had instantly demanded that his angels (who were all there with him from the start, needless to say, and what’s odd about that?) bow down before Adam, but Satan had refused. God got annoyed every single time he recalled their subsequent conversation. “Why won’t you bow down to Adam?” God had angrily demanded. (K, 15:27) “How could I bow down before a mortal made of clay dried tingling hard?” Satan had responded. (K, Al 15:33)

  God’s initial reaction had been to say, “‘Tingling hard?’ What kind of pretentious description of dried clay is that, Satan?” But instead he had thundered, “Descend to Hell, you insolent creature. You are hereby damned!” (Q: Why had God invariably capitalized the word “Hell” in the Koran? Answer: Uhh … Maybe because it had been the point of the whole thing?)

  “Can my damnation wait until the raising of the dead?” Satan had quickly asked (K, 15:36), and God remembered thinking at the time, “The raising of the dead won’t happen until Judgment Day, which is a long ways off, like at the very end of this whole story, in fact! I think that is an incredibly unreasonable request, but you know what, I will instantly agree to it.” “Yes,” God had quickly responded to Satan, “that is okay with me.” That should have been the end of their little dustup … but then Satan had started harassing God! “Since you tricked me into error,” Satan had said (which was absolutely true, God had tricked Satan into error; he wasn’t quite sure how he had done it, but he knew he definitely had), “I will trick your humans.”

  “Begone, devil!” God had then yelled at Satan. (“I just said yes to your highly unreasonable request and now you’re giving me grief like this?” is what he was thinking.) “You are contemptible,” God had snarled as he sent Satan tumbling down to Hell. “Anyone who listens to you—which, to reiterate, I will want them to do, which I will tempt them into doing—(K, 6:123) but still, anyone who does so will follow you straight into Hell!” (A question had crossed God’s mind at that point: Wouldn’t it have made more sense for Satan to tempt good people? What exactly was the point of him luring bad people into being bad? Wasn’t it somewhat like making sure that 2+2=4? But this was a ridiculous question and therefore easily refuted: If God had wanted 2+2 to equal 5 it definitely would have!)<
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  “Still can’t believe how quickly Satan got Adam and Eve to strip!” God mutters to himself, slumped in his talking throne. (K, 7:27) God had created Adam and Eve fully dressed, obviously. Human bodies, God had felt from the start, were vile, hideous things. They should be covered up as much as possible. God had actually begun to wish by this time that he’d clothed animals. He abhorred the sight of swollen monkey bottoms and dangling donkey penises. Next time around, he’d give the humans a new commandment: “Dress ye all animals so that their nakedness will not offend the Lord, your God. (Ye may leave fish and insects nude but birds must be clothed, including bat-birds.”)

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Another thing God had taken this opportunity to clear up with Muhammad: When Cain and Abel had had their battle over which one of them God liked better (it was Abel needless to say because he brought barbecue while Cain brought a bunch of boring vegetables), Cain had looked at his brother and said, “I will murder you,” and Abel (who was nude, by the way), had responded with a rather lengthy speech, the central point of which was, “Because I fear God, I will not fight you, I’d rather you suffer his punishment and become an inmate of Hell.” (K, 5:27–29) Cain then killed Abel and indeed gone to Hell for it. (Cain had in fact been the first person to be sent to Hell. “Most people didn’t even know Hell existed back then,” God later mused. “They foolishly believed in a place called ‘sheol,’ which it turns out was completely made up! How funny.”) After Cain had killed Abel, God sent a raven down to scratch a diagram in the dirt demonstrating to Cain how to cover his dead brother’s penis and balls. (K, 5:27–31) “I’m still not quite sure why Abel was nude,” God had thought. “I think he stripped while he was making that pretentious speech but I don’t know. I’m also not sure why I had to send a raven down with directions regarding how to cover a penis and balls because, I mean, it’s kind of self-explanatory, right?”

  Yet another clarification God had wanted to make to Muhammad: When Noah’s wife had died, God wanted it to be understood that he had immediately sent her to Hell. (K, 21:10) “First of all, I don’t think she believed in Noah,” God had explained to Gabriel at the time. Even as the whole earth was flooded, exactly as Noah had predicted, she had still doubted him. (Which was, when you thought about it, kind of moronic, because there hadn’t been much to doubt at that point, but whatever, she still had.) God had also been pretty sure that Noah’s wife had cheated on her husband with one of their sons, most likely that evil, penis-gazing youngest one, Ham. (OT, Gen. 9:22–25)

  Lot’s wife was roasting in Hell too, God had informed Muhammad. Why? Because she had openly disobeyed one of his angels, that’s why! “Don’t look back,” the angel had commanded her and really, can you be any clearer than that? But the old hag had looked back, so God, enraged, had instantly turned her into a salt-statue and then sent her plunging to Hell. So what if she had been married to a pervert who mainly wanted to have sex with their daughters or volunteer them for a gangbang? “Taste the eternal flames of punishment, old woman!” God had bellowed. (Because Lot’s wife had definitely looked like an old woman [K, 26:171] and God had found that repulsive. Old men? The very best thing to be. Old women? Abominations.) As Lot’s wife plummeted downward, shrieking in terror, God had called after her “No one escapes my perfect justice, you horrid old salt-crone! NO ONE! In the end, everyone is punished.” (And because God had known that was true, it had sent a shiver of … what was it? … excitement? … dread? … straight through him.)

  One final clarification: God had long been disgruntled with the way Solomon had portrayed him in the Book of Job, so he used this opportunity to explain to Muhammad what had actually happened back then. When Job had cried out to God that he was in physical agony, God had instantly relieved him. (K, 21:83–84) “I told him to sit in cold water and rub herbs on himself and after that he felt much better.” (K, 38:41) Why hadn’t Solomon talked about THAT? It was galling, and not only because God had given Solomon all that great wisdom but additionally because he now remembered that he’d also given him the ability to talk to birds as well as to control genies! (K, 27:16–22) “Damned Jewish ingrate,” God had muttered to himself. “Makes me glad I gave him that pinkie-dick.” (OT, 1K 12:10) But God had gotten Solomon back in the end. He’d had him die standing up, then had weevils eat the walking stick out from underneath him so that his corpse suddenly toppled to the ground. (K, 34:14) “That was hilarious,” God chuckles thickly to himself, half-slumped over in his throne.

  But of course, the main thing that God had needed to clear up in the Koran, kind of the whole point of the book in a way, was to tell Muhammad that Jesus had not been his son, that he had merely been a human being. A very illustrious human being, yes, admittedly, but definitely not God’s son. “The truth was, it would have been beneath my glory to father a son, okay?” God later told Gabriel. (K, 4:171) “I was simply too immaculate for that.” (K, 19:35) With regard to the question “Who was Jesus’ father?” the correct answer was: No one. Jesus had no father. When Mary got pregnant, there had been no sperm involved at all, just a kind of, oh, call it “magic breath,” if you like. (K, 21:91)

  While Mary was giving birth to Jesus—by herself under a palm tree, obviously (K, 19:18)—she had cried out in pain, so God had instantly had an angel (whom he had thoughtfully prestationed beneath the ground) call up to her: “God has provided dates for you, shake the tree and they will fall.” Mary shook the tree and the dates fell and she ate them and felt much better, and God remembered puffing up with pride about that. (K, 19:23–25)

  When Mary brought normal-human-baby Jesus out for people to meet, something surprising happened. The baby suddenly made an announcement to them all: “I am a servant of God,” the baby began. “He has given me a Book and made me a prophet and blessed me wherever I may be for as long as I live.” People stood there in stunned silence as week-old baby Jesus continued to lecture them. “There was peace on the day I was born and there will be peace on the day I die and also on the day I am raised from the dead,” the baby proclaimed. (K, 19:30–33) “Why did I wait until Jesus was thirty for him to begin his preaching?” God remembered asking himself. “Why did I not let the talking baby start preaching right then? That would have been amazing, right? A talking baby—that would’ve been like the greatest circus act of all time! That would have done the trick!”

  But that had instantly been followed by “Do what trick? What am I even trying to accomplish here? If Jesus was a normal human baby, then why did I just have him predict his own death and resurrection?”

  This question had seemed thorny for a moment, but the answer quickly became obvious: The baby had lied. The truth was that he wasn’t going to “die.” Here’s what was actually going to happen: When things got hot for Jesus, God was going to fly him up to heaven and have a look-alike get crucified. (K, 4:157) (“Sort of like when that look-alike replaced Paul McCartney after he was beheaded in that car accident,” God much later reflected to himself. God was one of the very few people who preferred Wings to the Beatles, by the way. The main reason for that was that he abhorred John Lennon. “Oh, I’m a ‘concept,’ am I?!”) “I will not die on the cross,” the baby should have said, if it was going to be completely truthful. “My look-alike will die. Therefore, because I will not actually be dead, I could not possibly be ‘raised from the dead.’”

  When Jesus had first arrived in heaven after God yanked him out of the trouble he was in and replaced him with that unfortunate look-alike, God had prepared a beautiful speech for the moment. (K, 5:110–120) “Oh Jesus, son of Mary,” God began, “Remember how good I have been to you and your mother, Mary. Remember how I made you a talking baby. Remember how I let you heal people and raise the dead and also how I made people not believe in you and accuse you of magic?”

  Jesus just stood there and stared at God, inscrutable as always. God continued, now raising his voice a little bit. “Remember when your followers asked for food, Jesus, and you told them to believe
in me and they said ‘food will make us believe in God,’ so you asked me to send down food because I was the best giver of food (which was true, obviously, and I thank you for pointing it out) and remember how I said ‘I will send down food, but if anyone disbelieves in me after this, I will most definitely hurt them?’”

  Jesus still just stood there, staring silently back at God. God rolled on, not liking how shrill his voice was starting to sound now. (“I’m talking too much and that’s never ever a good thing,” had crossed his mind.) “Did you tell people, ‘My mother and I are gods,’ Jesus?” God demanded, before instantly answering his own question. “No, you did not. You told them to worship only me, Jesus. You told them that I was powerful, mighty, and wise and that they should subject themselves to my always-just punishment and that the only true happiness lay in obeying ME because I control everything in every single way! Do you remember that conversation, Jesus, do you?”