Dear God,

I walked out my front door to find a swarm of dying mayflies on the sidewalk. Why is it that you designed mayflies to live only for one day and then die? It seems awfully cruel to me.

- Rosemarie

Rosemarie,

It is a common misconception that mayflies live only for one day. The truth is that they live in their adult form for one day, but they live in their larval form for much longer - a few weeks.

There’s a clear reason for this arrangement that might just help you feel better about the whole thing. What you don’t know about mayflies is that they’re born terrorists.

Mayflies possess an unrivaled mental aptitude that makes their inherent terroristic nature particularly dangerous. You may think that human beings are the most intelligent species on the planet, but you’re wrong. It’s mayflies. They’re geniuses beyond human comprehension.

If mayflies were able to live more than one day, they would, in their malice, design, construct and explode a bomb capable of creating a crater the size of New Zealand.

Mayflies have a harsh political agenda which they seek to achieve by any means necessary. Their manifesto: Liberate the Omaha Seventeen! Nobody, not even I, know who the Omaha Seventeen are, much less how to liberate them, and that makes the mayflies such a terrible threat. You see, mayflies do not accept that ignorance is an excuse for inaction.

Every morning, during mayfly season, millions upon millions of mayflies emerge from their larval state, have group sex while flying in the air, and then set upon their dastardly mission of designing the ultimate superweapon. By nightfall, their plans are complete, and they go to bed with the agreement that they’ll build the weapon and detonate it before breakfast. Then, they all die.

You should be grateful, very grateful, to see your sidewalk littered with their carcases, the little buggers.

- God

Dear God,

The professor for my Interpretation of Music course has given me the assignment of doing a symbolic examination of the song I Ran So Far Away by A Flock of Seagulls. I’ve looked at the lyrics, and read the biographies of the band members, but I can’t figure out the central issue of the song.

What were they running so far to get away from, and in the end, what happened when they couldn’t get away?

- Frank

Frank,

Some musical historians have speculated that the members of the Flock of Seagulls were writing about their efforts to get away from the Curse of the One Hit Wonders which hit so many New Wave bands. Of course, the lyrics of I Ran So Far Away clearly refer to the inability to escape the pursuer. As you surely know, A Flock of Seagulls had another well known hit, Space Age Love Song.

No, what A Flock of Seagulls was trying so unsuccessfully to run away from was a demon named Hairy Herman. Hairy Herman specializes in the possession of the larynxes of pop singers, causing them to hiccup in the middle of recording sessions.

There is no known exorcism procedure for getting rid of Harry Herman. The only thing that causes Hairy Herman to leave is the bankruptcy of a band due to skyrocketing studio costs that never bear fruit, or the breakup of a band as the result of the arguments that often result from a hiccuping singer.

A Flock of Seagulls lasted longer than most. I Ran So Far Away was recorded over 5 days in the studio, with the good parts spliced together. Hairy Herman finally left A Flock of Seagulls when the band went bankrupt, but members made their second fortune playing at state fairs.

- God

Dear God,

Why is there so much spam in my email inbox, and what can I do to rid myself of it?

- Inga

Inga,

Spam is the wages of sin, a fate similar to, but not quite worse than, death. With the onslaught of spam never ceasing, soon your email inbox will start to ache with heaviness, until your quota is filled and you sink to the bottom of the Internet.

Your spam comes from the sin of being overly friendly with the online world, laying your good name out there like a wanton hussy. For, how could the spam find you if you had not displayed your address out in public, as if in invitation for the devil himself. Who do you think could be the source of spam, if not Satan?

Of course, I created Satan myself, and being all-knowing, I knew that Satan would turn out the way that he did. So, Satan is really my servant.

The truth is that I am the source of spam, and I send it out to you because your email displeases me. For, I am under contract with the United States Postal Service, in order to increase its operations. Email is unacceptable competition.

So, in the name of the United States Postal Service, in the name of Satan, and in the name of God (which is, after all, my name), I tell you that you shall not be free of spam until you go to your nearest Post Office and purchase at least ten books of stamps!

- God

Dear God,

They say that you are both all-knowing and all-powerful.

So, if that’s true, why couldn’t you just use your power to filter out all those nasty email spam messages that I get about phentermine and disney toon porn and all that kind of stuff.

Surely, it’s in your power to do so, so what gives?

- Harried Harry

Harry,

There’s a simple answer for why I don’t use my omniscience and omnipotence to stop these email messages. Spam is the spawn of Satan.

If you’re intelligent, you’ll now be following up with another question: Why don’t I just get rid of Satan?

The answer is that Satan’s evil is for your own good. I once eliminated Satan and all his works a long time ago, and people got really pissy about it. They complained and complained that they didn’t have anything to do, or any reason to do anything at all. They would just lay around in bed all day, drooling.

It seems that people need to have things in their life that they believe to be evil, just as a motivational technique. So, I had to reinstate Satan, and as a compensation for his earlier destruction, give Satan’s hordes all a year’s supply of jelly beans. Demons really love jelly beans, so I was quite put out.

Spam, as you call it, helps you to appreciate the personal emails that you do get. Think of those pesky emails as my way of keeping you appreciative.

- God

Dear God,

Yesterday, I found out about an online book entitled Why Won’t God Heal Amputees?

In that book, the author writes:

“The Bible clearly promises that God answers prayers. For example, in Mark 11:24 Jesus says, “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” And billions of Christians believe these promises. You can find thousands of books, magazine articles and Web sites talking about the power of prayer. According to believers, God is answering millions of their prayers every day.

So what should happen if we pray to God to restore amputated limbs? Clearly, if God is real, limbs should regenerate through prayer. In reality, they do not.

Why not? Because God is imaginary. Notice that there is zero ambiguity in this situation. There is only one way for a limb to regenerate through prayer: God must exist and God must answer prayers. What we find is that whenever we create a unambiguous situation like this and look at the results of prayer, prayer never works.”

God, this writer is saying that you’re imaginary, and using the proof that you don’t answer prayers to heal amputees, even thought the Christian Bible clearly promises that you’ll answer any prayer so long as the person really believes that you will.

So, God, if you exist, as this blog clearly indicates, then how come you won’t listen to the prayers of amputees and heal them to wholeness?

- Rosalind

Rosalind,

The reason is that the Devil is engaging me in a battle of prayer and anti-prayer. I do answer the prayers of amputees, and heal their wounds to restore their lost arms and legs. The problem is that Satan immediately counteracts my answered prayer with an instant re-amputation. So, in the very instant that I heal amputees, Satan undoes my healing.

The main thing for you to keep in mind is that none of this is my fault - not the original amputation, and not the re-amputation by the Devil. The essence of cosmic truth is that I, God, am responsible for everything good, but cannot be blamed when anything goes wrong. Surely, if you’re experienced with Christianity, you’ve noticed that basic theological principle.

-God

Dear God,

Although I am 32 years old, I am new to the kitchen, having gone out to eat at restaurants for most of my life. I am just now learning to bake, and have gotten my first can of baking powder ever.

Something about this baking powder confuses me, however. It says on the package that it is “double acting”. Does that mean that I should use half of what a recipe calls for, when I use this baking powder?

- Darnice

Darnice,

Congratulations on your foray into the kitchen.

No, you should not use half the amount of double acting baking powder. Use the same amount as you would if you were using plain old baking powder.

The phrase “double acting” does not refer to any kind of extra power to make cookies rise in the oven. Instead, double acting baking powder actually has a second function - a sacred function.

Not only does double acting baking powder help delicious deserts get all puffy in the oven, but it also serves as an excellent agent for casting out demons. When you don’t have any holy water handy, and demons are pestering you and preventing you from making the evening meal with their infernal hijinks, get out your double acting baking powder and throw it around your kitchen.

If you don’t believe me, I suggest that you look at the packaging for your baking powder. The FDA requires that all double acting baking powder be packaged with the following advisory: Double Acting Baking Powder uses a variety of antidemonic leavening agents in combination with the pulverized bones of the saints. Do not put in the microwave, as hellfire may ensue.

- God

Dear God,

Why is your Wiki Bible offline?

- Karl Gustav

Karl,

One of the difficult things about using wiki technology to spread my Holy Word is that there are lots of spammers who like to replace substantial edits with mere advertisements for viagara, breast implants, and other kinds of spam.

I am omnipotent, but I am also lazy. You can kind of think of me as a divine underachiever. So, I’m tired of the open source, and will be working on a New New Testament in a new format that is not vulnerable to Satan’s hordes of spam writing demon bots

- God

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 noticed a couple of days ago that 18 of your earliest blog postings are gone. How come?

- Stan

Stan,

It’s Satan’s fault. He sent a demonic horde of hackers out, with infernal worms and hellish viruses to attack our heavenly server.

Don’t worry, though. All that stuff that we lost and was not backed up on our server somewhere is just the old testament. You can rest assured that our Heavenly web masters have updated the cosmic system software to prevent such diabolical security breaches in the future.

- God