Dear God,

My family always goes down to Florida on vacation in April, but this year we are having a difficult time deciding where exactly to go. My son wants to go to the Florida Keys and go snorkeling, but my daughter wants to the Universal Theme Park in Orlando, which has a new ride, Revenge of the Mummy. Here’s what they say about the ride: “Plunge into total darkness as you face fireballs, scarab beetles, and an army of warrior mummies on a psychological thrill ride totally unlike anything that’s come along in the past 3,000 years!”

I’m having a hard time choosing. Where would you go?

- Denise

Denise,

As God, the all-powerful ruler of the Universe, I have to say that theme park rides don’t amuse me very much. Facing fireballs, beetles, or even an army of warrior mummies is no big deal to me. I can always just snap my fingers, and they disappear. What’s the point?

Of course, you’re not a family of divine beings. You’re human. That makes me want to ask you: Why would you pay to go someplace where you’re going to be attacked with fireballs, swarms of beetles, and be chased by an army of warrior mummies?

I do have to give this much credit to the Universal Theme Park, however. They’ve got their history down pat. They’re absolutely correct when they call the Revenge of the Mummy ride “totally unlike anything that’s come along in the past 3,000 years.” 3,000 years ago, in ancient egypt, there was a roller coaster thrill ride just like the one they’ve made in Orlando - down to the last detail.

So, if you’re in the mood for historical re-enactment, go to the Universal Theme Park. Otherwise, go snorkeling in the waters of the Florida Keys. I had to provide sneak peeks into the future, but I am willing to tell you that the coral reefs there are only going to last another 20 years or so, and then they’ll be bleached into oblivion by rising ocean temperatures. See the little fish while you can.

- God

Dear God,

A lot of people are saying that Eliot Spitzer did the wrong thing by paying a prostitute over four thousand dollars for a sexual encounter. A lot of people say that what Mr. Spitzer did was against God’s laws.

Well, God, is it true? Is what Eliot Spitzer did against your moral laws?

- Marvin

Marvin,

Consider the advice I gave to Hosea, which was written down in the following story:

“Said the LORD unto me, go yet, love a woman beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress, according to the love of the LORD toward the children of Israel, who look to other gods, and love flagons of wine, so I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver, and for a homer of barley, and a half homer of barley, and I said unto her, Thou shalt abide for me many days.”

You see, prostitution itself is clearly not against my moral laws. I told Hosea to go and buy a woman, and he did so, and that was fine with me.

My problem with Eliot Spitzer is that he had no sense of proportion. He did the wrong thing because he wasted money on that prostitute of his. I clearly set the holy price for a prostitute: Pay 15 pieces of silver, and a homer and a half of barley, and not a homer of barley more - and that’s for “many days,” not just a one-time encounter.

Eliot Spitzer couldn’t keep his homers to himself, and now look what’s happened to him. If he had just gone and hired a cheap hooker, he never would have gotten in trouble. The IRS never investigates an ATM withdrawal of 100 dollars.

- God

Dear God,

My best friend wants to be a singer and she is really good. I ‘m afraid that when we grow up, she might become famous and not remember me.

What can I do to make sure that she remembers me forever?

- Felicia

Felicia,

Sleep with her boyfriend, and post a video of it on the Internet.

- God

Dear God,

I’ve been praying to try to find an answer to this question for weeks now, but so far nothing is clear to me.

I betrayed the man I love, but I want so much for us to work out what went wrong and start again with a fresh beginning built upon the rock solid foundation of Jesus Christ so that we can fall in love again.

How can I tell that he is meant for me, and if he is, how can I be assured that we will be together forever?

- Darlene

Darlene,

I’d say that this man is not meant for you, given the way that you betrayed him. Also, I’ve noticed that even as you’ve come to me supposedly asking about how you can get back to this man, you’re trying to base your relationship with him on some kind of weird involvement with another man - my son.

Listen, Jesus is grown up now. I understand that. It’s not my business to tell him which women to date. If he wants to get messed up in some kind of bizarre love triangle with you and this other guy, that’s his decision, not mine.

Still, I have to wonder why you’re coming to me asking whether it’s okay for you to get into this threesome with Jesus and your preferred sexual partner. Do you think that this is the sort of thing that a father wants to have a conversation about?

You’ve been stalking me with your incessant praying. Nag, nag, nag. You won’t leave me alone. What really brings it over the line is when you talk about the kind of sexual positions you want Jesus to take with you and this man. The “foundation”? What, is that supposed to be, him on the bottom?

If Jesus wants to degrade himself like that with you, I supposed I can’t stop him, but I had hoped for better. I gave him a special start in life, and mentored him, made sure that he got to travel. I thought, maybe he’d be a rabbi, or get a good career changing money in the temple, but no, that was too good for him.

You and Jesus do whatever kinky kinds of things you want, okay? I just don’t want to hear about it. Keep praying, and I’m going to get a restraining order.

Oh, and if you want to be forever together with this man of yours, I suggest surgery. Look for the doctors who separate conjoined twins, and tell them you want the procedure reversed.

- God

Dear God,

My nine year old son has begun acting out in school, hanging out with some kids who like to get in trouble. He skips school, and when he is in school, he says rude things to his teachers. How can I stop my son from engaging in this sort of behavior?

- Edwin

Edwin,

Put him in a cave for three days. That’s what I did with my son when he was misbehaving. Crucify him first, if he’s been especially disrespectful.

My son was engaged in a lot of self-destructive behavior, walking around with a bunch of homeless, unemployed people. One time, he stole a whole bunch of food from a local fisherman and baker. He told his friends that he had the magic power to multiply fish and loaves of bread, and that’s where all the stolen food came from. Another time, he took a great big barrel from a vineyard outside of Jerusalem, and told his friends that he had the magical power to transform water into wine. Once, he stole a boat to go across a lake, and when people asked him how he had gotten across so fast, he hid the boat, and told them that he had the magical power of walking on water.

That’s what it always was with him - whenever he did something wrong, he would deny it, and dismiss all the evidence of his wrongdoing by saying that it was magic. Then, when his little crime spree ended, he tried to get out being punished by intimidating people. He’d get up in their faces, and say, “Do you know who my father is?”

I had had enough. I said, “Listen, kid, I might be your father, but don’t think that you’re going to get out of this just because I’m a bigshot. You have to learn that there are consequences for your actions. It’s up on the cross with you.”

Then he talked back to me. “My father, Why have you forsaken, me?”

That was it. My patience was over. I told my son it was time out. He had to go spend three days in a cave, thinking about what he had done.

It’s cruel to be kind.

- God

Dear God,

I don’t understand how you can give people Family Advice so freely, when you don’t have a family yourself. By what right do you claim to give this advice?

- Larissa

Larissa,

Larissa, like most people, you presume that I don’t have a family. I do have a family.

Take, for example, my brother Clyde. Poor Clyde has always been under tremendous pressure from our mother and father, and my father’s second wife Jeanne.

Clyde lives under my shadow, and it’s been pretty hard on him. My mother is always nagging him, though she thinks that she’s being encouraging.

“Why don’t you be more like your brother, God?” she says to him. “Look at God. He created the universe. Why don’t you try that?”

My mother doesn’t understand that Clyde just might create a universe, if only she would stop nagging him to do it. Nobody can create a universe under that kind of pressure.

Clyde wants to follow his own path, and live humbly, and just make fish. He made the coelocanth, for example, but when he showed that to our mother, she turned her nose up at it, and said, “Where’s the rest of it?” The coelocanth was so ashamed of itself that
it swam down to the deepest parts of the ocean, and was not seen again for a very long time.

I’ve got Clyde involved with a mentoring program through the United Way of Boston, and twice a week he goes and plays basketball. I’m not seeing that it’s doing him much good. I’d give him a job making galaxies if I didn’t think his pride would be hurt.

My point, Larissa, is that I know a lot about family problems. It’s because my family is so screwed up that I can give people like you advice about how to make your own family life better.

- God

Dear God,

I recently saw this bumper sticker on a car. It says, “I love Jesus more than you do”

Is this possible? Could somebody really love Jesus more than I do? I’ve been working so hard to love Jesus as much as I can, but it’s hard to know where I stand in Jesus’s heart. Jesus isn’t the kind of man who lets you know how he’s feeling. No matter what I do or say, Jesus remains silent and absent.

So, please, God, be honest with me. Who loves Jesus the most?

- Libby

Libby,

I’m sorry to say that you don’t stand a chance in Jesus’s heart.

Frigg, that nordic slut of a goddess, has always has the hots for Jesus. She loves Jesus more than anybody else, and Jesus only has eyes for her.

Oh, it doesn’t matter that Frigg is already married to Odin. I’ve told Jesus over and over again that Frigg will never leave Odin for him, but Jesus always says that he doesn’t know how a god with only one eye can really satisfy a goddess like Frigg.

I’m telling you, Frigg is bad news. Not only is she robbing the cradle, but she keeps too many secrets. Legend says that she knows the destiny of everyone, even my destiny, but she won’t tell anyone what that destiny is, the little tease.

I know that this isn’t easy for you to hear, Libby, but I suggest that you move on. There’s no sense keeping a torch burning for Jesus. He’s just not ready to let go right now.

- God

Dear God,

I have two children, ages 11 and 9. I’m wondering if they’re old enough to start watching horror movies like Nightmare on Elm Street or The Night of the Living Dead. What do you think the right age to start watching horror movies is?

- Elise

Elise,

I think that the right age to start watching horror movies is 52 years old. At that age, you’ve already been exposed to enough real horror that the Hollywood simulations of it make a nice background noise, kind of like NPR in the morning.

- God

Dear God,

I have a Wiccan friend, and she tells me that Easter, which I celebrate as a Christian holiday, is really just a recycled festival for the worship of the pre-Christian goddess Ishtar, from whose other name, Ostara, words like estrous come from, refering to the fertile female power. She also points out that the East in Easter refers to Venus, the morning star and goddess Aphrodite.

I’m confused. Where does Jesus fit into all this?

- Edgar

Edgar,

Never fear. Jesus is at the heart of Easter, just as your preachers have always told you. The true origin of the holiday of Easter, however, has never been told to you before.

Jesus hates it when I talk about this, but the truth is that he was a rather husky boy, thick around the middle. He liked his mother’s honey cakes a little too much. The family gave Jesus the nickname “Eater” as a result.

Jesus’s little brother, Ernie, was just two years old when he heard his siblings calling Jesus “Eater”. He joined in, but because he was very young, mispronounced it, “Easter”. The change stuck, and even when Jesus got to be an adult and lost some weight, everybody still called him Easter.

Jesus never really lost his appreciation for food, however. After he was reborn in the spirit after the crucifixion, his first words were “Could someone bring me some olives and cheese?”

- God

Dear God,

I just found out this morning, at the breakfast table, that my 16 year-old daughter is pregnant. She says she is going to keep the baby.

I asked my daughter who the father is, and she says that there isn’t a father. She insists that she never had sex with anybody, but that she just got pregnant.

I have no idea how to deal with this. If my daughter would just admit who the father of the baby is, I would at least have a place to start. I could see if he is the kind of person who ought to be involved in my daughter’s life, and could contribute to taking care of the child.

Not knowing who the father is, and having my daughter completely deny even that she had sex to get pregnant, however, leaves me feeling stymied. What do I do, God?

- Albert

Albert,

I’m sorry for your situation. When I say that, I don’t just mean that I have sympathy for you. I say that because I am responsible.

I am the father of your daughter’s child. A couple of months ago, I appeared to her in the form of a tube of sparkly lip gloss, and when she applied my canteloupe-flavored divine essence to her lips, she became impregnated with the seed of the Cosmos itself.

I meant to appear to you and explain the situation to you in a dream last week, before your daughter could tell you, but I got busy creating a new star in the Andromeda Galaxy. Its going to be green, and three times the size of the sun, and eventually there’s going to be a planet with intelligent life forms that look like chewing gum on a hot sidewalk.

I hope you can understand how I got distracted.

Don’t worry about providing financial support for your granddaughter (yes, the baby will be a girl). Instead, you should lay the foundations of a new religion, for I intend this child to become my prophet at the age of 26.

This new messiah has been sent to the people of the Earth in order to teach you the importance of proper breathing techniques, to debunk the impure methods of degraded commercial aromatherapy, to drive the cell phone booths out of the shopping mall, and to travel from town to town, preaching and miraculously converting SUVs into fuel efficient vehicles.

- God

Dear God,

I’m a forty year-old father of three. I love my family, and I want to do well by them, but I’m about at the end of my rope.

I’ve been working long hours at my job for years now, always feeling that I’m on the verge of achieving financial success. Just when I think I have financial stability in grasp, an unanticipated cost comes up, and I have to put my nose back to the grindstone again.

I want to make sure that my family is provided for, but I’m exhausted. What can I do to overcome my fatigue and re-energize my professional life to finally attain the success I’ve been working toward for so long?

- Eugene

Eugene,

When I get feeling blue, or a little bit lost, or not sure what to do next, I always invent a new religion. I find someone to be my special prophet for a few years, and give that person magical powers to impress the little people and get them to pay attention. Then, the followers of the new religion give me extra-special enthusiastic worship, convinced that they’re going to change the world. The prophets rarely survive for longer than five or ten years, but the believers keep on worshipping me in a new, jim dandy kind of way that makes me feel all rosy inside again.

Oh, wait. I forgot. You’re not omnipotent. That must explain why you’re tired all the time.

Hm. Have you tried pulling yourself up by your bootstraps?

- God

Dear God,

I was just born again a few days ago, and so I’m a bit new to all this Christianity stuff. There’s a lot I don’t understand. For example, I was reading this piece over at a Christian web site called Overcomers Unlimited, and there’s this stuff about how Jesus is going to surround us with hedges.

The site says, “When we are born into the kingdom, God puts a hedge around us. After that Satan has no access to us except as God allows.”

I don’t get it. Help me out. What are these people talking about?

- Nicholas

Nicholas,

First of all, it’s me who plants the hedge. The Bible clearly states that. I can’t get my son Jesus to do any yardwork, no matter how much I nag him, the lazy boy.

Second, what the hedge thing is all about is global warming. First, the hedge creates a shadow. Second, it helps to absorb carbon dioxide.

You’ve just now been born again, but I’ll have that hedge up around you by springtime. I’d have it up sooner if my son wasn’t so busy playing around with his Xbox.

- God