G-d Explains a Few Things

ELLO, kids! I am the LORD thy G-d and I would like to bend thine ear for a moment. But before I get to the meat of the issue, I need to clear something up. Using My omniscient brain, I am able to read your minds and see that some of you doubt that it is really I, the LORD G-d, Maker of Heaven and Earth, of all that is seen and unseen, Who addresses you now.

Let Me be quite clear that I never punish anyone for honest skepticism. Mr. Thomas Jefferson -- one of My more gifted children -- once advised his nephew, Peter Carr:

Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.

OMMY got it exactly right. Being a loving Parent, and not the insecure diva some people make me out to be, of course I would rather that a child of Mine disbelieve in Me for good and honest reasons, than that he believe in Me for silly or dishonorable reasons!

Naturally, what I like best is when My children believe in Me for the proper reasons, but failing that, I consider "correct disbelief" to be the next best thing.

I only wanted to reassure the skeptics out there that I don't hold their skepticism against them -- not at all. And I mean you, Charles, and you, Emily, and especially you, José. But having got that out of the way, I shall now give all of you a thoroughly convincing proof of My Divine Omnipotence! Are you ready?

SHAZAM! See how I am able to appear and disappear before your startled eyes? Pretty nifty, huh? I think that should be more than sufficient evidence for the time being that I am who I say I am. Now we can proceed with the question that I wished to address! Where did I put that email? Ah, yes... [ahem]

A young man named Travis, a self-identified atheist, poses this skull-cracking conundrum:

If there is only one God, why has he created so many different doctrines to confuse us all?

EHOLD -- sayeth the LORD, Who is Me -- it is really quite simple.

Firstly, as My beloved and discerning child Travis hath correctly stated, all of the diverse religious doctrines among mankind issueth from ME.

Yes, the Jewish Torah and Tanakh and Talmud, and the Gospels of My Beloved Son Jesus, along with NEARLY ALL of the rest of the Christian ''New Testament'', and the Qur'an, and the Hindu Vedas and Upanishads, and the Analects of Confucius, and the Buddhist sutras, and the Egyptian Book of the Dead, and BELIEVE IT OR NOT, Time Bandits and Atlas Shrugged and roughly two out of three episodes of South Park -- 'twas none other than I, the LORD thy G-d, Who authored these oft' mutually contradictory narratives, and many others. (And when I say "authored," I don't mean that I physically moved the pen, but rather that I whispered into the brains of My children and told them exactly what I needed them to write. Of course, sometimes I let them embellish my inspiration a little bit. Or a lot. But not a single embellishment went into the final text without My say-so.)

And how could it be otherwise? Woe to ye naive Christians who blameth "the Devil," a.k.a. Satan, for such "heathen scriptures" as the bloody and infernal Qur'an. It is true that My loyal and frequently misunderstood servant, the cranky yet lovable Satan, was instrumental in composing alcoran, or the "Koran," or Qur'an (all of which are perfectly sensible ways of latinizing the book's Arabic title). But you are logically and factually mistaken if you put the entire blame for this rather nasty document on poor Satan's head!

For in so doing, you attribute to a very gifted Freelance Writer, namely Mr. Lucifer Q. Satan, the authority that is held only by the CEO, President, and Editor-in-Chief... who is, obviously, Me. No document of any importance gets published in this Universe without My editorial oversight and approval. That is what "Omnipotence" means, My children. The Buck Stops Here, right on my gigantic glowing desk.

Now, using My vast intellect and mind-reading powers, I foresee that some of you will object as follows:

Well, that is a reasonable objection, and the Truth is that some of the religions out there really are the creations of My children, and not Mine own invention. For example, Joseph Smith made up the Book of Mormon™ all by his little self -- with My permission and My approval, of course, because I judged it to be a nice effort for a novice writer, and after careful thought I decided that Mormonism would overall be of far more benefit than harm for humanity. But it was not My own writing.

On the other hand, the runaway bestseller Dianetics was a mischievous invention from one of Satan's underlings, spoon-fed into the thoroughly average mind of poor L. Ron Hubbard, who could not have devised something so fiendishly stupid without help. Again, though, everyone involved acted with my permission, because I saw that Scientology would end up being an occasionally useful nuisance.

UT having admitted that some false religions are purely the invention of men or devils, I will repeat what I said before: that many other false religions, despite being more false than true, were invented by Me, personally. Come, let Us reason together:

1. Can you understand why I might have conceivably permitted Muhammad to invent the awful Qur'an? If you don't understand, just keep reading, My little one!
2. And can you understand that I allowed the Qur'an to exist because I foresaw that despite all the misery and havoc Muhammad's followers have caused in very recent Earth history, the religion of Islam would nonetheless be a key player in My looooong-term Plan for the universal benefit and salvation of humankind?
3. And if you understand those two points, can you bring yourself to speculate that when I, the LORD G-d, see something really important needing to be published, I prefer to cut out the fucking middleman and write the goshdarn thing Myself?

Now, if that doesn't persuade you that I personally authored the Torah, the Gospels of Jesus, the Vedas and Upanishads, the Iliad, Beverly Cleary's "Beezus and Ramona" stories, and the Qur'an, I think you are beyond the powers of logic, My poor child. (Which is not to say that all of these are true in ALL points -- only that each and every word in each and every one of them is either the Truth, or is a Colossal Fib that I, the LORD G-d, fabricated Myself, for My own highly mysterious purposes.)

Now, getting to those purposes -- as My child Travis wondereth, why would G-d inflict such theological diversity upon mankind?

ELL, the full answer is rather complicated, and for another time. Possibly for another generation not even born yet. But I will tell you part of the answer: I invented a mix of mutually-contradictory religions precisely because I foresaw that by quarreling amongst themselves as to which doctrine should prevail, men would in time increase the intellectual sophistication of their species. They would self-improve.

To put it another way: I seeded the minds of men with a mix of Truths and Lies so that by sorting out the mess, you clever little monkey-piglets might evolve your adorable selves into cunning philosophers! (And rest assured, there is not one among the billions of you who is in possession of the pure, unalloyed, 100% TROOF, for after all there are something like 80 billion galaxies, when last I checked, yet this has only recently been figured out by human scientists, and none of the Scriptures of any major religion clearly spells out the actual, factual Truth -- which is, namely, that My Creation is pants-wettingly gigantic, but not infinite, and in fact its dimensions can be abstractly calculated, if not mentally comprehended, by ordinary human minds.)

And that's the Truth, honest to Me, thus sayeth the LORD thy G-d. And on that note...

CIAO, KIDLETS! Stay groovy!

 
 

Even though I inspired many different religions, some of the Holy Scriptures I created contained more Truth than others. And the "clever little monkey-piglets" remark was meant as to which one of these Divine Revelations happens to be a lot Truthier than most of the rest. If that's not enough of a hint: the word Truth has 5 letters and starts with a "T"...

Labels: philosophy, religion, revelation

posted by Throbert | 7/08/2008 12:41:00 AM |

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