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GOD: The Interview

 

 

Zigby B. Bigby

 

Zigby: God...

God: Yo.

Zigby: The big question first... is there an afterlife?

God: In what sense?

Zigby: Well you know, is there a heaven where people can go after they die?

God: Well that's not an afterlife but an afterdeath strictly speaking but yes, unfortunately there is such a domain.

Zigby: Why is that unfortunate?

God: Well Zigby, heaven is full of virtuous people, pious people, people who quite unlike you Zigby, never put a single foot wrong their whole lives explicitly so that they could live forever in eternal and perfect peace. They spend that peaceful eternity, generally speaking, gloating profusely, staring into the pits of hell watching all the billions of suffering writhing in torture until the end of time. The problem with heaven is that everyone there is so me-damned smug. Mind you, I do like the fact that it has good climate control... even in winter you can have a good tan, in summer you can go skiing.

Zigby: But there's a hell too.

God: Yeah it's called giving interviews. Look can we speed this up, I have to smite some organisms on the other side of the universe and they get very annoyed if I'm late...

Zigby: I'll try to be quick... Now here on earth we have this problem.

God: Do tell.

Zigby: Well for thousands of years now millions of people have died over this issue. Some people say that Mohammed was your son, while others say no, only Jesus was your son and other people say that neither were related to you. Can we please have some clarity because I think all our readers will be dying to hear your side.

God: Look there are a trillion billion planets in this place and I'm a busy guy... I mean it's hard to remember the exact details. If I asked you how many nostril hairs you clipped this morning would you know?

Zigby: No, but you're omnipotent and besides I have a very hairy nose so it's not like your question is all that fair. Were Jesus and Mohammed your sons?

God: Well they weren't my daughters.

Zigby: No but were they your sons?

God: Well... okay, once, maybe two thousand years ago I met a chick named Mary who was such a honey and a sweetheart that... yeah I placed a rugrat in her womb... but what the kid got up to after that was his own #@%&! business. 

Zigby: And Mohammed?

God: Look okay, you got me twice. Proud of yourself?

Zigby: Scientists today estimate the age of the universe to be between ten to twenty billion years old. Can you please tell us how old this place is?

God: I don't know, I don't wear a watch. Time is... you know... there. In this kind of weird... you know... way. A million years inside a star equals ten billion outside a black hole while only one second passes up your bum... I mean quite frankly Zigby I never was that good at relativity.

Zigby: Ten Billion... twenty billion, a hundred?

God: Look if you say so. Why does this stuff matter to you?

 Zigby: Was the universe started with a big bang?

God: Well the party was good but I wouldn't say it was a bang exactly, more of a long fizz. I was trying to prove that you couldn't build a universe by spinning two really enormous black holes around each other for eternity when suddenly... well you can imagine my shock.

Zigby:Uhmm.

God: The whole thing started as a bet.

Zigby: A bet...

God: Sure. Me and my two brothers ODG and OGD - chronic gamblers both of them - were screwing around making these miniverses and OGD who's the oldest right-

Zigby: Right.

God: He says 'Let's all make a universe. It'll be cool.' So I have to ask. 'What's a universe?' Well OGD is angry already. 'Like a miniverse only a shitload bigger.' he barks. 'No.' I said, 'it wouldn't work.' I bet OGD three pairs of winter underwear that an infinite number of deities locked in an infinitely large room couldn't build a universe given an infinite amount of time. The three of us had no chance, I argued. I was hideously wrong and three pairs of winter underwear later it was all... let there be light and let there be cappucinos and so on. It was humiliating at first, being so horrifically mistaken, but after the dancing girls turned up at the party, I didn't care anymore.

Zigby: So it was a joint family project.

God: Yeah in as much as it was a family idea. When it comes to dealing with the actual mundane deity legwork of creating firmaments and suchlike... you know somehow I wound up doing it all. Not that I'm complaining but my two brothers are pretty lazy bastards when you get right down to it. Incompetent to change the Gravitational Constant without supervision.

Zigby: But generally you do enjoy your work?

God: What aspect of it I mean I'm a pretty busy guy.

 Zigby: You know... loving billions of people, hearing all their prayers, deciding who to turn into a block of sodium chloride...

God: Generally? No. Look Zigby, omnipotence isn't all it's cracked up to be. I mean you should hear it, all day long from all points of the universe the same ridiculous stuff. God give me the ability to sell more cars. God can I have a lawnmower. God give me the power to eat McDonalds. God can I please have bigger genitals. God can you grant me smaller genitals. I don't know what it is with you mortals and your reproductive organs, but you sure do think they're important.

Zigby: So...

God: I mean it's the inanity of what most people pray for that bugs me the most, you know? It's never please can we have rain for our thirsty crops, nothing actually significant anymore, it's can you help me find my remote control god and by the way god does this shirt match this tie? Consciousness is too good for some beings.

Zigby: So what should we be praying for?

God: Don't pray. Leave me out of it. Do things for yourselves. That's what having consciousness is all about, creating the world the way you want it to be, not letting thew world create you. Freedom of will is the greatest power in life and most people refuse to use it. I'd turn them all into gameshow hosts but then they'd only pray for whiter teeth.

Zigby: Yours doesn't seem to be a very Christian view.

God: And? Next question.

Zigby: Well I'd like to talk about Moses.

God: Uh-huh.

Zigby: Did you give him the ten commandments on two stone tablets?

God: Well it wasn't really like that. You see Moses was a bastard. A chronic drunk and... well let's just say he had an eye for his neighbours ass. So he came up the mountain one day, I mean the guy climbed a mountain because he had something to ask me. Now I'm fascinated by lunatics and will usually give them a go, so Moses gets to the top and I, surprising myself somewhat, actually show up.

Zigby: And did you, as the Bible suggests, at any time, show him your back parts?

God: Yeah I mooned him, so what?

Zigby: Well... why?

God: He asked me if the sun shone out of my arse and I knew there was only one way to convince him of the truth.

Zigby: Okay, so the ten commandments...

God: Yeah well I was yacking away with Moses and before too long my utter magnificence wore him down to a state of abject toadying and he found himself breaking down, confessing all his rotteness to me. So, together we worked out a ten step recovery programme for him. Then the rotten faker wrote down the ten steps and sold them to his followers as laws of god. I mean really, the nerve of that guy.

Zigby: They aren't laws of god then?

God: There are two laws of god Zigby, firstly try not to get eaten by something bigger than you, and two, don't screw anyone over unless you want them to do the same to you.

Zigby: Karma.

God: Yeah.

Zigby: So it's absolute chaos out there.

God: It's a whale eat plankton world, and I'd rather be a whale than a plankton and that's for sure.

Zigby: Now on to the issue of atheism-

God: Let me say from the outset that I completely refuse to belive in athiests and so any further discussion is going to have to be hypothetical in the extreme.

Zigby: Why do you think it is that some people refuse to believe in you?

God: Look I really find it impossible to postulate a cause for any reasoning of this kind.

Zigby: But if such people were to exist, in another universe say, then what might be something that... allowed them to not believe in god?

God: Oh... I don't know. A paucity of imagination, a missing frontal lobe, a chemical imbalance, senile dementia, a repressed hate of all things living and not living or perhaps just out and out stupidity. I mean that's my best guess you understand.

Zigby: God...

God: Zigby...

Zigby: It's been an honour.

God: I know.