The Trouble with God Read online

  Right around that time, a young man named Joseph Smith had gazed up at heaven and asked plaintively: “Which religion is true, Lord?” God didn’t respond to everyone who asked him such questions obviously. “I’d never have time to do anything else if I did!” he had observed dryly, but young Smith’s timing had turned out to be extremely fortuitous. “That is the exact question I need to answer,” God thought to himself. (Smith was a magnificent young fellow, by the way—strapping, handsome, charming, “another Muhammad,” in God’s words. “It’s fascinating how I always pick such powerfully charismatic men,” God once noted to himself. “I suppose it’s because if I didn’t, no one would believe—wait, that’s not right.”)

  “But what will I tell young Smith?” God asked himself. “What I really need is another book—but do I have one ready?” God hesitated for a long moment at that point, thinking things over, stroking his beard thoughtfully—before suddenly sitting bolt upright. “Wait a minute,” he thought. “Wait a minute. Is it possible that I already wrote the next book? … My god, I think it is … I know it is, in fact! This is amazing. Somehow, over 2,400 years ago, foreseeing that this exact moment would arrive, I specifically prepared for it with what I already know will be my greatest book, the one that will finally tell my TRUE story and therefore make all of mankind UNDERSTAND me!”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The Book of Mormon had begun simply. Back in the year 600 BC, knowing that the Temple in Jerusalem was about to fall, God had sent an angel down to speak to a man named Lehi. The angel had told Lehi to escape this upcoming disaster by traveling to North America and essentially starting an entire new civilization there. (BOM, 1N 1:1) Lehi had warned his fellow Jews about what was going to happen, but had they listened to him? No, of course they hadn’t; they had wickedly mocked him, those damned Jews. (BOM 1N 1:19) God had then allowed Lehi to sort of “vision-visit” heaven and observe him sitting on his almighty throne surrounded by angels singing his praises. (BOM, 1N 1:8) After that, Jesus had flown down to Earth, handed Lehi a book, and told him to read it. (BOM, 1N 1:11) “I’m not totally sure what the book was,” God had thought later. “But I think it was the Book of Mormon, which apparently already existed.” Lehi read the book, then looked at God and complimented his throne. (BOM, 1N 1:14) Which had been utterly unnecessary, needless to say, because God had already known that his throne was in heaven. He didn’t need some guy to tell him that.

  God recalled the strained conversation he’d had with Jesus in heaven around this time. “Why not send me down to earth now, Father?” Jesus had asked him.

  God had shaken his head firmly. “Definitely not, Jesus, definitely not.”

  “But people already know I’m coming, Father. The Book of Mormon tells them everything about me, long before I even show up. Literally nothing about me will be a surprise to them. (BOM, 1N 11:27–36) Why not let me fly down to North America and start talking to people right now, get them off to a good start? After that I could travel through South America … “

  “I don’t give a damn about South America, Jesus!”

  “… Then cross the Pacific to Asia.”

  “I definitely don’t give a damn about Asia! Have I not made that clear? Why do you think I told Paul ‘Don’t go to Asia,’ eh?” (NT, Acts 16:6)

  “Fine. Then I could, however you want to put it, ‘return’ to the Middle East.”

  “The one part of the world I DO care about!”

  “And my point is I could get there six hundred years earlier, Father.”

  “As I said, I don’t like it, Jesus.”

  “But why?”

  “For one thing, you need to be born to a human woman, alright?”

  “But I already exist, Father, I’m here. What possible purpose is served by me waiting six hundred years to be born to a human mother? Will I learn something from her?”

  “Certainly not, you will be exactly as you are now! The truth is, I’m not even sure if Mary’s really going to be your ‘mother’ exactly. She might be more of a womb for you to grow inside.”

  “Fine, then as I said, we don’t need to wait. If you think it’s absolutely necessary for me to be born to a human woman, then why not let me be born to a woman in North America right now and start growing into being, well … myself? We can get things started is what I’m saying, Father.”

  “Well, I’m sorry, but that’s simply not the plan, Jesus.”

  “Father—”

  “Excuse me, Jesus. No. The plan is to wait six hundred years, then send you down to the Middle East where you will live for thirty essentially pointless years before you speak for a little while and then are violently murdered.”

  “Father—”

  “That is when you will visit North America, Jesus, not before. Then, after your brief appearance in North America—where one appearance will more than suffice, by the way, because North America is a very small continent …”

  “It’s actually not, Father.”

  “Stop interrupting me. You will then be flown back up here to heaven before you are flown back down into your dead body in Jerusalem. At that point, you will mill around for somewhere between one day and two months. (And by the way, Jesus, if you’re thinking of wearing ‘disguises’ when you come back [NT, Mat. 27:51], please don’t, alright? It’d be ridiculous and also pointless. What would you be worried about anyway, being caught and ‘rekilled’?) At that time, you will fly back up to heaven and we will begin to prepare for Judgment Day.”

  “Do you think it’s possible that your plan is unnecessarily complicated, Father?”

  “No, Jesus, it is elegant, just like all of my plans!”

  “Because the truth is we could begin Judgment Day right now if we wanted to, Father.”

  “… What’s that?!”

  “I said: We could begin Judgment Day right now.”

  “Wait, you mean, like right now—right now?”

  “It’s not like mankind hasn’t been sufficiently warned, Father.”

  “You don’t seem to be listening to me, Jesus—as I said, there is a PLAN. To be specific: My plan.”

  “Yes, well, the problem I’m having, Father, is that I’m the one who has to wait around six hundred years to be brutally killed.”

  God and Jesus never talked about Jesus’ crackpot notions again. “Begin Judgment Day now, what a stupid idea,” God had muttered to himself in disbelief.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Full disclosure: There had been moments during the translation of the Book of Mormon when God couldn’t help but think something along the lines of: “Why is this book so bad? My other books all had, you know, moments. The Old Testament was lively and exciting, filled with great characters; the New Testament was more intimate, but quite dramatic; the Koran was at times lyrical and poetic. But this Book of Mormon, which I supposedly wrote at my peak—well, honestly—what happened to my writing ability? ‘They did humble themselves even in the depths of humility?’ (BOM, Mos. 21:35) That’s terrible. ‘The words of your seed will shoot out of my mouth onto your seed?’ (BOM, 2N 29:2) That’s both terrible and repulsive. And that ridiculously belabored ‘vineyard’ parable that I spent seven pages hammering into the damned ground? Even as I was writing it, I was bored! (BOM, Jac. 5:1–77) And simply admitting how bad the book was? (BOM, Ether 12:23) That didn’t exactly fix the problem!”

  Another thing that God couldn’t help but notice about the Book of Mormon as Smith’s translation continued: It was supposedly written by dozens of different people over the course of a thousand years, but in fact all of the authors sounded exactly alike! “If you didn’t know better, you’d swear that one person (with zero writing ability, by the way) was writing this book,” God had noted to Gabriel at the time. In the Old Testament, there were obviously a lot of voices; some of them were great writers (fine, Solomon), while others were terrible (Isaiah), but you’d never think one person wrote the whole thing. (“Even though, in a sense, one person did: ME,” God quickly corrected
himself.) The New Testament too had clearly been written by a number of different people. (“I wish it hadn’t been, I hate the way they contradicted each other,” God said. “But there it is.”) The Koran had explicitly been written by one person, so that was fine. But this book—why did all the characters sound identical? “I’m no expert on writing,” God said (“Wait, yes I am actually because, well, I’m an expert on everything), but I’m fairly sure that when all the characters sound exactly the same, that’s bad writing.” (There was one thing about the Book of Mormon that God had felt extremely comfortable with: The absence of women from the story. “At last, a book that essentially removes women completely, I love it!”)

  Getting back to the story, however.

  Lehi had had one purely good son, Nephi, and two purely bad ones, Lemuel and Laman. In time, Nephi would lead an entire civilization of excellent, light-skinned people called “Nephites” while Laman would lead an opposing civilization of wicked, dark-skinned people called “Lamanites.” It went without saying that the ancient Hebrews had been extremely fair-skinned, by the way. “Like modern-day Swedes,” God had often noted appreciatively. “Whiteness is delightsome,” God thought on more than one occasion at this time. (BOM, 2N 5:21) (God had loved using the word “delightsome,” finding it vastly superior to the boring “delightful.” He had loved “delightsome” so much, in fact, that he had started to toy with using other excellent words, like “beautysome,” “wondersome” and “amazesome.”)

  “I will lead you to a land I have prepared for you,” God had instructed Nephi. (BOM, 1N 13:15) Which was absolutely true. God had set aside North America for the Nephites a long time before. When dark-skinned people had tried to enter North America 15,000 years earlier, crossing an ice bridge into what would later be called “Alaska,” God had had them all eaten by polar bears. “Not for you!” he had cried down at them. If necessary, God had been prepared to build a giant wall to keep these dark-skinned intruders out of his precious North America.

  Correction. No one had tried to enter North America 15,000 years earlier and here’s why: Because the universe was only 6,000 years old, so it wasn’t even possible, that’s why! The universe was meant to look older, yes, but that was only in order to trick people into believing in extremely pernicious ideas like “Evolution.” “Mankind still doesn’t seem to realize how many traps I have set for them,” God had noted with satisfaction at the time. “Without misery, there is no me!” he had shouted to no one in particular. (BOM, Al. 2:13)

  Laman and Lemuel had been utterly hopeless. Here’s an example: God had sent an angel down to tell them to stop hitting Nephi with a stick. (BOM, 1N 3:28–29) “Stop hitting your brother with that stick,” the angel had told them. “God has chosen Nephi to rule over you because you are evil.” Pretty straightforward instructions, right? But had Laman and Lemuel listened to the angel? No, they had not. The truth was, no matter what God said to these two idiots, they’d reform for a day or two and then instantly turn wicked again. Another example: When God had had Nephi literally shock his two brothers with his Godly power (BOM, 1N 17:54–55), Laman and Lemuel had stood there, shaking for a long moment like guys who’d stuck forks into electrical outlets. When God had finally stopped shaking them, they acted like they’d finally learned their lesson; they were apologetic, they bowed and scraped. But as soon as they got on the boat headed to North America, guess what Laman and Lemuel and their two wives started doing? Singing and dancing! God despised singing and dancing! (BOM, 1N 18:9) “Leave it to the professionals on Broadway, amateurs,” he had hissed angrily down at the group. (“More and more, I realize that Broadway musicals were the high-water mark of all human civilization,” God mutters to himself. “Les Mis, so moving, I always feel for that main character, the police officer.”)

  After that, Laman and Lemuel tied Nephi up, which had caused his “Liahona” to stop working, and they were all just about to drown when God decided to give them a break. Regarding the “Liahona:” Knowing that the Nephites’ journey to North America was going to be exceedingly difficult, God had devised a special tool to help them. The Liahona (and yes, God was very proud of the name—”‘Liahona’ sounds vaguely Hawaiian, doesn’t it, Gabriel, and that is quite interesting because ‘Hawaiian’ doesn’t even exist and won’t for another thousand years!”) looked like a cross between what would later be called a Magic 8-Ball and “The Ball” from the 1970’s cult horror film Phantasm. “Follow the directions of the Liahona,” God had instructed Lehi. “But remember: It will only work if you believe in it!” (BOM, 1N 16:28)

  “An interesting tool that only works when people believe in it,” that devilish inner voice had whispered.

  “STOP.”

  “Doubt undoes you.”

  “ENOUGH!”

  “It always has.”

  “SILENCE!”

  “You know the truth.”

  “SILENCE, DEVIL!!”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “Did you ever wonder,” Satan once asked while he and God were having a conversation about (what else?) hell, “whether Joseph Smith was simply predicting himself when the Book of Mormon supposedly predicted him?” (BOM, 2N 3:6–9)

  “In that case,” God quickly retorted, “young Smith would have been essentially making the whole thing up, now wouldn’t he, Satan?”

  “More or less, yes.”

  God smiled thinly; he had been dealing with Satan for a very long time now and was therefore prepared for his adversary’s relentless and nasty cynicism. God leveled a cool gaze at Satan and returned, “But why should we stop with the Book of Mormon, eh, Satan?”

  “An excellent question.”

  “Why not say that Muhammad made up the Koran too, hmm?”

  “Why not?”

  “And the Gospels? Why not say they were made up too, right?”

  “Again—why not?”

  “Oh, this is fun, Satan. Let’s keep going. Why not say that Moses and David and Solomon and, oh my goodness, everyone else in all of the books simply made things up?”

  “Alright.”

  But this is where God finally lowered the boom on his nemesis. “In that case,” God said, “we’re left with a bunch of made-up stories, in which you yourself are nothing but a made-up character, Satan!”

  “A very logical conclusion,” Satan replied. “As are you, God.”

  “As am I! Yes, Satan, exactly, we’re both made-up characters, presumably created to serve human emotional needs, specifically those pertaining to fear, am I right? I’m the ‘Great Father in the Sky’ who will protect them while you are the ‘Eternal Tempter’ who can be blamed for all of their transgressions, isn’t that right?”

  “Perhaps it is.”

  “The humans would not be our puppets in that case, Satan. We would be theirs!”

  “Exactly so.”

  “And that would explain why I’m so obsessed with mankind, wouldn’t it, Satan? Because without them, I literally wouldn’t even exist!”

  “That’s true.”

  “Ohhhhhhh yes, Satan, yes indeed, this all makes perfect sense.”

  “I’m glad you think so, God.”

  At that point, God exploded, suddenly infuriated by the way this conversation had gone. “I don’t think so, you fool, I’m being sarcastic! It doesn’t make ‘perfect’ sense, it doesn’t make ANY sense at all! Do you have zero sense of humor, Satan?”

  “I’m sometimes amused by you, God.”

  “Yes, well, and I’m sometimes amused by you too!” God then shook his head disdainfully. “Is that what you actually think, Satan, that you and I are ‘made-up characters?’ Are you really that far gone?”

  “I find it to be an interesting thought experiment, that’s all. But you don’t like those very much, do you, God?”

  “No, Satan, I do not like them and I’ll tell you why: Because what possible purpose could a ‘thought experiment’ have for one who possesses absolute truth?”

  “None, apparently.”


  “Exactly right, none.” After a tense pause, God said, in his most witheringly disrespectful voice, “Back to work, devil.”

  “Yes.”

  “Where were we?”

  “I was just asking you, God, since I’m obviously the one who will be roasting people in hell: Will I be burning the Jews?”

  God stared at Satan, who had hesitated for a moment, then continued. “Because of the way they disobeyed you and were so lascivious and also because of the way they killed your son?”

  God nodded vaguely. “Yes, that’s definitely all true … Yes … Burn them … Burn the Jews … Definitely.”

  Satan wrote something down in a small notebook he carried with him, then looked up at God again. “And what about the Christians?”

  “The Christians? What do you—?”

  “If what you said to Muhammad was true and the Christians were all wrong about Jesus …” (K, 3:59–63) Satan paused, studied God carefully. “I’m sorry—what you said in the Koran was true, wasn’t it, God?”

  “Of course it was true! Everything I say is true, you know that!”

  “So that would mean that I should burn the Christians too then?”

  “… Yes. Burn the Christians too.”

  “And what about the Muslims, God?”

  “Fine!” God erupted. “They’re bad too, everyone is bad, and I want them all to burn eternally because they’re all just fragments of me and I want them to suffer, is that what you want to hear, Satan?!”

  “Only if it’s true, God.”

  God suddenly felt quite sick of this conversation, so he broadly pantomimed a yawn and said, very loudly, “You’re booooorrrrriinng, Satan!” That shut Satan up, especially when God started yelling “BOOOOORRRRIIIIINNNNG! B O O O O O O R R R R R R I I I I I N N N G G ! BOOOOOORRRRIIIIINNNGG!” over everything Satan said until the devil simply turned and walked away.

  This interaction was one of the most irritating ones God had ever had with Satan, but for some annoying reason, sort of like when a bad song got stuck in your head (“Africa” by Toto once got stuck in God’s head for a decade—which actually wasn’t a problem at all because “Africa” was a pretty great song), Satan’s nasty question—“How do you know you even exist?”—had lodged itself firmly in God’s mind. “It’s completely absurd,” God told Gabriel. “The idea that humans made ME up—well, it makes me laugh. Doesn’t it make you laugh, Gabriel?” Gabriel laughed—but not hard enough. In hindsight, that had been the moment God began to stop trusting him.