Advice From God

Dear God,

I was recently reading the Book of Numbers, Chapter 31, in which you commanded Moses to slaughter the people of Midian. Moses, as part of that slaughter, commanded his followers to kill all the little boys, saying, “Now therefore kill every male among the little ones.”

When the followers of Moses killed all the little boys they captured from Midian, you did not protest. You did not tell Moses he had done a bad thing by commanding the massive slaughter of children. In fact, it is implied in the Book of Numbers that Moses committed this atrocity at your suggestion.

Yet, in my country today, it is a crime to round up little children and kill them. Are these laws against the murder of children in violation of the will of God? If so, when is it okay to kill little boys, and when is it a sin?

- Daniel

Daniel,

You’ve got it all wrong.

That chapter from the Book of Numbers was rewritten by the descendents of Moses, so that he would not look bad.

I certainly did protest against the slaughter of those innocent boys by Moses. The children of Moses had those protests censored.
What I really said to Moses was this: “Now therefore kill every male among the little swans.” I was just suggesting to Moses that he might want to go with his soldiers on a hunting party in the marshlands around Midian.

Moses just wasn’t paying close attention to what I said. That was pretty typical of him. Why, did you know that I dictated 47 commandments to him when I appeared to him as a burning bush? Moses didn’t take notes, and he just came back with those tablets showing the ones he could remember off the top of his head, and he didn’t even get all of that right.

I would never, ever, ever, condone murder. I am, after all, omnibenevolent. For every contradiction of that truth in the Holy Bible, I can show you a serious typographical error.

- God

Dear God,

Leviticus 5, verse 2 speaks to us, “If a soul touch any unclean thing, whether it be a carcass of an unclean beast, or a carcass of unclean cattle, or the carcass of unclean creeping things, and if it be hidden from him; he also shall be unclean, and guilty.”

What is the meaning of this Bible verse for modern life?

- Louis

Louis,

There are three very important things you need to remember about this teaching of mine. I’m very specific about what makes you unclean and guilty, so pay attention.

First, if you touch any of these unclean things, so long as it is not hidden from you that you’ve touched it, it’s totally fine. You’re still clean and innocent. Go ahead and touch the rotting carcasses of unclean animals. Just look at the carcasses while you’re doing it.
Second, the only problem happens if your soul does the touching, if you know what I mean. No love affairs with rotting dead unclean animals, unless you look first.

Third, I encourage you to go out and get personal with creeping things. Just follow the rules above, and make sure the creeping things are clean first. Ask them to bathe before you roll around together. It’s a good way to get familiar before you get carnal. Cool? Oh, if these animals are already dead, then don’t bother asking them. Just hose them down.

A good modern technique for making sure your dead creeping animal love object won’t make you guilty in my eyes is to spray it with Lysol. Otherwise, the standards of the ancient world related to this Bible verse were pretty much the same as for the modern world. Family values are family values, yesterday, today and tomorrow!

- 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