Dear God,

While I was out with the guys Saturday night, I saw on CNN that there was an attack against a submarine by a giant pacific octopus. Apparently, it was caught on film. I believe that this might just be one of the signs of the End Times that we were told by you to be on the lookout for.

The return of Leviathan! Who would have thought I would live to see this day? If more submarines are attacked around the world, the oceans could very well turn to blood, as predicted in your holy book.

Of course, the damned atheists are denying it all. They’re saying that the video doesn’t show an attack at all!.

Lord, help me see the wisdom in your ways. Did you send that giant octopus to attack that ROV submarine, or was it the work of Satan.

- Diver Dan

Dan,

It was my work to send that octopus to the submarine all right, but the whole incident has been tragically misunderstood.

I sent that octopus over to the camera of the submarine to tell the guy operating the sub that he had some spinach stuck between his teeth. You know… right… there. But, before the octopus could try to communicate with the sub operator, he got blown away by the thruster jets turned into his face.

Oh, how I hate scientists. First evolution, now this!

- God

Dear God,

I believe in you. No, really I do. I guess you know, so I don’t have to convince you. But I do believe in you, OK?

Thing is, God, I’m not really sure I believe what’s said in religious books. There are hundreds of books that people say are inspired by you, or that you wrote. Each one says that it, and only it, is the true word of God. But they say different things. Obviously, they can’t all be true.

It seems to me that it would make more sense to seek You through direct observation of your creation. If I look at the universe You created and learn everything I can about the principles inherent in it, surely that would bring me closer to You, oh Lord. There must be some reason that the internal angles of a triangle always add up to 180 degrees, and that reason would presumably be You. So then, the pursuit of math and science would be more of a sacred quest than reading old books.

Am I right, Lord?

-Charles

Charlie,

Yes, that would seem to make more sense. Do you think seeming to make sense is going to get you into heaven?

The natural world is, in fact, a great big practical joke. For instance, I created Carbon 14 to decay at a given rate, with a half life that can be calculated. Then, I created fake bones with smaller amounts of Carbon 14 in them, buried them deeper in the ground, and made them look like they came from animals that lived longer ago. Ha ha.

I created the universe in exactly six days, 6348 years ago. All the mountains of scientific evidence pointing to the contrary are My little joke on those wiseacre scientists. Another one of my little jokes is choosing raving idiots to speak through. Nobody with a decent education and a functional brain is going to believe servants of Mine like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell–although certain very smart Machiavellian neo-conservatives may occasionally play along to further their own interests.

Why am I pranking all the most careful and systematic observers of My creation? Simple. I don’t like intelligent people. Can’t stand ‘em. They’re always saying things like “well, there’s another way to look at that,” and “actually, there is evidence to the contrary.” They are very annoying, and I do not want them in heaven with Me for eternity.

Which sacred book should you believe? The Bible. Why? Because it says so in the Bible. Oh, I know what you’re thinking–I always do. That argument is based on circular reasoning, and is therefore not logically valid. Very clever. Remember what I think of clever people? You better dumb up quick, Charlie, if you know what’s good for you. And quit calling yourself Charles, you pretentious twit. I don’t like it.

-God

Dear God,

Recently, it’s been revealed that George W. Bush knowingly broke laws against spying on Americans without permission from the courts. Bush said he had to do it in order to protect America from terrorist attack. Perhaps, but it’s still true that for the president to willfully break the law has brought the United States to the brink of a Constitutional crisis that puts our very democracy in peril.

But then I was thinking, you speak to George W. Bush all the time, right? And you know everything. If Bush wants the information, can’t you just give it to him? Unlike wiretapping, there’s no law against obtaining information from The Almighty. So how about it, Lord?

-Rick

Rick,

Tried that. Problem is, Bush is a “big idea” man. Another way of saying that is that he is a “fried out too many brain cells partying full time until the age of 40″ man. He can’t handle complex information. Keeps screwing up the Arab names–Zawahiri, Zarkawi, it’s all the same to him.

And where, exactly, in the Bible do you read anything about Me supporting democracy? It was the Athenian pagans who came up with the idea of democracy, not Me. Yet you Americans somehow figure you can go ahead and follow pagan doctrines if they seem like a good idea, and just assume the whole business has my blessing.

Like everything that happens, this is all part of My great plan. Obviously, I had a hand in getting Bush elected. How else do you explain the American people electing a burnt-out upper class twit with a fake Texas accent, who can’t even speak in complete sentences? Like many I choose, he is the instrument of My will, in ways even he doesn’t understand. When I needed a blunt instrument to crush the pagan doctrines that dominate America, I naturally picked the dullest tool in the shed.

-God

Dear God,

I read just yesterday about how the Bush government has been demanding that search engines like Yahoo, MSN and Google turn over their databases of private information about what web sites Americans have been looking for and visiting. Apparently, President Bush decided that he needed to know what kinds of pornography Americans are looking at. Yahoo and MSN are said to have caved in to Bush’s demands, while Google did the right thing and said no to Bush.

On a legal level, this news disturbs me because it seems illegal for the President to go snooping into Americans’ private behavior just in order to find out what kind of pornography they like. On a more philosophical level, it makes me wonder about what Google really is. The Google database is many, many times bigger than the Holy Bible, or any human-compiled library, for that matter.

So, what I want to know is this: Is Google bigger than you, God?

- Irving Bonn

Irving

Google is bigger than me. In fact, Google is bigger than the universe.

It makes sense, if you think about it. After all, the universe is only the universe. Google, on the other hand, contains the direct records of the universe, plus a huge stream of comments about the universe.

So, if there’s a big rock outside of Cheyenne, Wyoming, Google will have the picture and measurements of the rock, a satellite photo of the rock from space, a map of the rock in relation to prominent roads, a web site about the rock, a blog chronicling developments related to the rock, and a discussion board debating the various qualities of the rock.

Medieval monks illuminating the Bible had nothing on the Googleverse.

Yet, I still have a leg up on Google. Google is bigger than me, but I speak through George W. Bush, the President of the United States. Can Google say that?

- God

Dear God,

I saw that a fellow named Clifford A. Pickover asked about time as one of his top 12 cosmic questions. So, what is your take on the issue? What is the nature of time?

- Felix

Felix,

That is the stupidest question of all time.

If I am asked that question one more time, I’m going to hurl.

I refuse to take the time to answer such a ridiculous question.

Do you get my point, Felix?

The essential nature of time has nothing to do with anything Albert Einstein wrote about. Time is, fundamentally, a pun. Time is the punchline for a joke I set up aeons ago for the archangel Gabriel. Gabriel still doesn’t get the joke, do you?

The joke started out as a knock knock joke, but also included an element in which I asked, how many clockmakers does it take to screw in a light bulb? Want to know the answer? 27.

It’s hilarious, this joke, but I’m afraid you wouldn’t get it. Anyway, the secret is in the delivery. Wait for it… It’s getting funnier all the time.

- God

Dear God,

Vice President Al Gore gave a speech today in which he accused President Bush of “breaking the law repeatedly and persistently”. During this speech, Vice President Gore said,

“A president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our government. Our Founding Fathers were adamant that they had established a government of laws and not men. Indeed, they recognized that the structure of government they had enshrined in our Constitution - our system of checks and balances - was designed with a central purpose of ensuring that it would govern through the rule of law.”

Now, I’m no great scholar, so I’m not ashamed to say that I looked up a word that Albert Gore used in that part of his speech: Adamant.

Here’s what the fourth edition of the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language says the definition of adamant is: “A stone once believed to be impenetrable in its hardness”.

God, you were around in 1776. Is it true that America’s founding fathers were made out of a stone that was impenerably hard? If so, does that explain why the British were unsuccessful in quelling the American revolt?

- Ned

Ned,

Yes, this is one of the great secrets of American history. The founding fathers were made of stone, specifically, the stone known as adamant. There is only one exception. Benjamin Franklin was a bit more soft. He was made out of soapstone. That’s why he was sent to France.

Now you can understand why it was no big deal back then that George Washington had wooden teeth. He would have bitten his tongue off if he had stone teeth. So, to be completely historically accurate, it is not completely true to say that the founding fathers were adamant. It would be more accurate to say that they were adamant, except for their teeth.

Oh, and their powdered wigs, of course.

- God

Dear God,

I recently heard some very disturbing news about one of your followers. It seems that a man named Reverend Herbert Lusk, who is a top religious advisor to President George W. Bush, made the following public threat to his critics as a part of a gathering known as Justice Sunday III:

“I want to say, first of all, be careful how you fool with the church. You mess around with the church, something stirs up inside of me! You be careful because the church has surviving power. My friends, you know this and know this well. Don’t fool with the church because the church has buried many a critic, and all the critics that we have not buried, we’re making funeral arrangements for them!”

Do you support this statement from Reverend Lusk, that the Christian Church has proudly buried its critics, and is making funeral arrangements for its new critics?

- Philadelphia Pete

Pete,

I do support Reverend Lusk’s statement, without equivocation.

You have completely misinterpreted Herb Lusk’s comments, you see. Sure, what Reverend Lusk said sounded like a vicious death threat against all non-believers and critics of the Christian religion. But, that’s not what he really meant.

What Reverend Lusk was talking about was his new plan to give every secular American a free beach holiday on a nice sandy beach where their kids can bury them in the sand. Also, Reverend Lusk is being so generous that he is offering free cemetery plots for his critics, for that time in the far future when they die, so that they don’t have to foot the expense.

See, there’s a logical explanation for what at first seems to be the ranting of a complete madman.

Reverend Lusk is not a madman, you see. You have my word on it.

Isn’t that enough?

- God

Dear God,

I was recently forwarded to the web site of the Fundamental Evangelistic Association, which is, as you might imagine, made by an association of fundamentalist evangelicals. On the web site, a set of questions is posed by Dennis Costella:

“WE ALL SPEND a great amount of time, effort and money to care for our earthly needs. However, few seem concerned about their eternal well-being. Are we too busy? We should not be! Long ago the Lord Jesus Christ asked, “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”(Mark 8:36-37). Do you have the answers to these vital questions? Do you know where you will spend eternity?”

God, do you have the answers to these vital questions? Do you know where you will spend eternity?

- Earnest P.

Earnest,

I do have the answers to these vital questions, and I shall share them with you now.

I know what it will profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul: Six hundred dollars, minus taxes.

I also know what a man shall give in exchange for his soul: His wife’s favorite pair of slippers. (Really! Every time! I’ve asked a whole bunch of guys, ‘Will you give me your wife’s slippers if I give you your soul?’ Every single one of them said ‘Sure.’ I have a kind of foot fetish, see.)

I have always known where I will spend eternity: In Toledo.

Now I also happen to know where you will spend eternity, but I’m not telling.

- God

Dear God,

You have a purpose for everything, it is said. What is the purpose of frogs hatching from their eggs without any arms or legs?

- Sylvanus

Sylvanus,

When frogs are young, it is sinful for them to paddle about with arms and legs. Why? Well, first of all, because I say so. I am the eternal definer of what is good and what is evil, and that ought to be good enough for you. However, a second reason is that young frogs derive sexual excitement from swimming through the water with their arms and legs.

Luckily, young frogs are very moral creatures, and intentionally keep their arms and legs responsibly inside their chests, where no harmful titillation can take place. I have intelligently designed this early morality in the frogs’ genetic code, in order to prevent newborn frogs from having their souls taken by Satan.

When frogs get older, and too tired and obsessed with catching flies to care much about sex, they go to a secret underwater cathedral, receive their religious confirmation, and puff out their legs and arms at long last. Then, they abstain from sex except to procreate on certain designated nights in the springtime, when they all hop in pools of water and rub up and down against eachother in gigantic sexual orgies.

That’s moral, see. I’ll explain that later - when you’re old enough.

- God

Dear God,

Two thousand years ago, you promised you followers that the End Times would soon arrive, and all of them would be saved, while their enemies would be dashed into little tiny bits and painfully destroyed.

So, we’ve been waiting! When will the End Times come? I’m ready to be saved and get my reward in heaven.

- Mark

Mark,

You remind me of when Jesus was young, and we would go out riding in my favorite chariot to go see his mother, Gaia, who lived very far away because my father, Kronos, didn’t approve of her. Anyway, I’d be driving the chariot across Asia Minor, and Jesus, who always rode in the back seat, would crane his neck up over my shoulder, and say, “My Father Who Art In Heaven, are we there yet?”

That always irritated me, which is why I worked up all that stuff about Jesus “having” to be crucified to save men from sin. I’ll tell you, after the crucifixion, when I told Jesus about my little practical joke, he didn’t talk to me for a week. I said, go visit your followers, if you want to give me the silent treatment, then. He said he was tired of the paparazzi always trying to draw his picture on papyrus.

Anyway, my point is that you’re really getting on my nerves. How about this: When we get close to the End Times, I’ll let you know. Until then, why don’t you just take a nap, or count telephone poles, or something, okay?

- God