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click
on the train to continue -- the station to 'go home' |
God
Angrily Clarifies
'Don't Kill' Rule
NEW YORK -
Responding to recent events on Earth, God, the omniscient creator-deity
worshipped by billions of followers of various faiths for more than 6,000
years, angrily clarified His long-time stance against humans killing each
other Monday.
"Look, I don't know, maybe I
haven't made myself completely clear, so
for the record, here it is again," said the Lord, His divine face
betraying
visible emotion during a press conference near the site of the fallen Twin
Towers. "Somehow, people keep coming up with the idea that I
want them to kill their neighbour. Well, I don't. And to be
honest, I'm really getting
sick and tired of it. Get it straight. Not only do I not want
anybody to
kill anyone, but I specifically commanded you not to, in really simple
terms
that anybody ought to be able to understand."
Worshipped by Christians, Jews, and
Muslims alike, God said His name has been invoked countless times over the
centuries as a reason to kill in what He called "an unending cycle of
violence."
"I don't care how holy somebody
claims to be," God said. "If a
person tells you it's My will that they kill someone, they're wrong.
Got
it? I don't care what religion you are, or who you think your enemy
is,
here it is one more time: No killing, in My name or anyone else's,
ever
again."
The press conference came as a
surprise to humankind, as God rarely
intervenes in earthly affairs. As a matter of longstanding policy,
He has
traditionally left the task of interpreting His message and divine will to
clerics, rabbis, priests, imams, and Biblical scholars. Theologians
and
laymen alike have been given the task of pondering His ineffable
mysteries,
deciding for themselves what to do as a matter of faith. His decision to
manifest on the material plane was motivated by the deep sense of shock,
outrage, and sorrow He felt over the Sept. 11 violence carried out in His
name, and over its dire potential ramifications around the globe.
"I tried to put it in the
simplest possible terms for you people, so
you'd get it straight, because I thought it was pretty important,"
said God,
called Yahweh and Allah respectively in the Judaic and Muslim traditions.
"I guess I figured I'd left no real room for confusion after putting
it in a
four-word sentence with one-syllable words, on the tablets I gave to
Moses.
How much more clear can I get?"
"But somehow, it all gets
twisted around and, next thing you know,
somebody's spouting off some nonsense about, 'God says I have to kill this
guy, God wants me to kill that guy, it's God's will,'" God continued.
"It's
not God's will, all right? News flash: 'God's will' equals
'Don't murder
people.'
"Worse yet, many of the worst
violators claim that their actions are
justified by passages in the Bible, Torah, and Qur'an.
"To be honest, there's some
contradictory stuff in there, okay?" God
said. "So I can see how it could be pretty misleading. I
admit it - My
bad. I did My best to inspire them, but a lot of imperfect human
agents
have misinterpreted My message over the millennia. Frankly, much of
the
material that got in there is dogmatic, doctrinal bullshit. I turn
My head
for a second and, suddenly, all this stuff about homosexuality gets into
Leviticus, and everybody thinks it's God's will to kill gays. It
absolutely
drives Me up the wall."
God praised the overwhelming majority
of His Muslim followers as
"wonderful, pious people," calling the perpetrators of the Sept.
11 attacks
rare exceptions.
"This whole medieval concept of
the jihad, or holy war, had all but
vanished from the Muslim world in, like, the 10th century, and with good
reason," God said. "There's no such thing as a holy war,
only unholy ones.
The vast majority of Muslims in this world reject the murderous actions of
these radical extremists, just like the vast majority of Christians in
America are pissed off over those two bigots on The 700 Club."
Continued God, "Read the book:
'Allah is kind, Allah is beautiful,
Allah is merciful.' It goes on and on that way, page after page.
But, no,
some assholes have to come along and revive this stupid holy-war crap just
to further their own hateful agenda. So now, everybody thinks
Muslims are
all murderous barbarians. Thanks, Taliban: 1,000 years of
pan-Islamic
cultural progress down the drain."
God stressed that His remarks were
not directed exclusively at
Islamic extremists, but rather at anyone whose ideological zealotry
overrides his or her ability to comprehend the core message of all world
religions.
"I don't care what faith you
are, everybody's been making this same
mistake since the dawn of time," God said. "The Muslims
massacre the
Hindus, the Hindus massacre the Muslims. The Buddhists, everybody
massacres
the Buddhists. The Jews, don't even get me started on the hardline,
right-wing, Meir Kahane-loving Israeli nationalists, man. And the
Christians? You people believe in a Messiah who says, 'Turn the
other
cheek,' but you've been killing everybody you can get your hands on since
the Crusades."
Growing increasingly wrathful, God
continued: "Can't you people see?
What are you, morons? There are a ton of different religious
traditions out
there, and different cultures worship Me in different ways. But the
basic
message is always the same: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism,
Shintoism... every religious belief system under the sun, they all say
you're supposed to love your neighbours, folks! It's not that hard a
concept
to grasp."
"Why would you think I'd want
anything else? Humans don't need
religion or God as an excuse to kill each other - you've been doing that
without any help from Me since you were freaking apes!" God said.
"The
whole point of believing in God is to have a higher standard of behaviour.
How obvious can you get?"
"I'm talking to all of you,
here!" continued God, His voice rising to
a shout. "Do you hear Me? I don't want you to kill
anybody. I'm against
it, across the board. How many times do I have to say it?
Don't kill each
other anymore - ever! I'm fucking serious!"
Upon completing His outburst, God
fell silent, standing quietly at
the podium for several moments. Then, witnesses reported, God's
shoulders
began to shake, and He wept. |
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