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Culture Vulture: If I were God

By CLAUDE SALHANI
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WASHINGTON, Oct. 12 (UPI) -- If I were God, man, would I be pissed off! Big time too! No matter what name you gave me, be it God, Allah or Yahweh, I think that I would be quite irate right about now.

During the last 4,000 years, civilizations (I don't know if that's the right choice of word) have continually killed each other in my name, each claiming that I was rightfully on their side. For the most part, my policy has been to let humans work it out with as little divine intervention as possible. Every few thousand years or so, they get so out of line that they force me to intervene, to send a plague, a flood or the such.

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But looking at the string of events that have transpired on Earth over the last month has made me more upset that usual. In fact I am quite furious. How can anyone justify the slaughter that occurred in my name? I gave clear instructions regarding this issue. Way up there, third on a list of Ten Commandments I gave humans, was not to use my name in vain. "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain."

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Now these fanatics, I mean what are they smoking? They claim that it will please me if Muslims kill Americans and Jews. Please me? Please! How can the killing of humans please me? How can any killing please me? And how do they know what pleases me, anyway? I never spoke to them. I never appeared to them in a dream and instructed them to go forth and kill Americans, Jews or anyone else for that matter.

I clearly stated that point in my sixth commandment when I struck a deal with Moses a few thousand years ago atop Mount Sinai. "Thou shalt not kill," I told him. Remember that one? These commandments are non-negotiable, they are written in stone. Literally. And in the Holy Koran, the Muslim equivalent of the Bible, Surah 17:22-39 commands the same -- not to kill. I don't make up one rule for some, and another for the rest of the world.

How can they instruct young men that killing innocent people will land them in paradise? Who ever told them that one?

And the bit about the 72 virgins -- the saints and I have a good laugh every time we hear that one mentioned. The one who is really laughing is the man downstairs, you know the one with the horns and the hoofed feet ... old Lucifer. He has not seen that many people show up on his doorstep since I did away with Sodom and Gomorrah.

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Here, I will let you in on a little secret. I think they are really working for the other guy -- for Beelzebub, the Prince of Darkness -- and he is using my name on his recruiting poster. You know, sort of like when the Soviets recruited poor souls to spy for them, all while letting them believe they were in fact spying for the West.

I mean who would sign up if he admitted that killing innocent people would guarantee them a place in eternal damnation, anyway? And that instead of 72 virgins, or any virgin for that matter, in reality you would be frolicking with a bunch of ugly little imps who's faces are covered with warts, and they would stab you with a pitchfork while you roasted in hell forever and ever. And you thought living in those Afghan caves in the middle of summer was bad? Well you ain't seen nothing yet.

And then there is this other fellow who claimed to speak for me too, the Rev. Jerry Falwell. He went as far as saying that the innocent who died in the Sept. 11 attacks in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon "deserved to die" because they were wicked! He said they made me mad. He said they made me mad because some of them were gay, others banned school prayers and yet others provided abortions. Excuse me? I don't recall ever taking his phone calls to let him know what mood I was in.

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One thing the people who misspeak in my name will learn in due course is that when I get mad, I get real mad. Just ask Noah.

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