Letter to Jehovah

Dear Jehovah:

I assume I should be sending this to Jehovah since I was raised in the West. And you are the only true, one god though if I would Muslim and living in Iraq I guess I’d have to write Allah. It does get a bit confusion but I will take it that religious dominance is something like a post office. With god it is best to use the one closest to you.

So I’ll start out with a couple of assumptions which i actually don’t have. One is that you exist and two is that you are Jehovah. For the sake of this letter we’ll just make you God.

Now I’m surrounded by people who believe in you and your absolute, infallible, clear word -- which is called the Bible here. But you knew that already. And they all say that you have revealed yourself to them in one way or another except that they seem to have crossed their wires and come up with different stories. Now for those of us on the outside of this circus that makes it rather bizarre and difficult.

So the main purpose of this letter was to ask why you didn’t make things a little bit clearer. I mean you do know that people have died over these things and others have been willing to kill over them. So it’s not like this are trivial issues. Lives are at stake and I’m assured you would have known this. Which of course raises the question as to why didn’t you make it clearer? You could have saved a few lives had you done so.

Let’s start with this book of yours. Catholics have one version and Protestants have another version. It’s not just that they translated it differently. They have different books. And for the first couple of hundred years no one was really sure what was supposed to be in the book and what wasn’t.

Now after that mess you left you then hand these various manuscripts over to people to copy by hand. Some no doubt were very scrupulous but people are only people. And along the way words were changed, things were added or possibly deleted. We know because we have different copies with these different words in them.

Wouldn’t it have made a bit more sense to drop that bombshell on us when there was the ability to copy what you sent word for word. Instead of scribes in darkened monasteries with quill and ink don’t you think a Bible being sent to Kinko’s would have made more sense?

Ditto for this guy they say was your son or you in disguise or you in a different form, etc. I’m told he was one of the above because he performed miracles, was crucified and rose from the dead. But then all the evidence for that you stuck in the book which has already created so many problems. Bad move God, really bad move.

You could have been a little bit more patient. It’s not like you were running out of time or getting too old to work. And since a thousand years are like a day to you all you had to do was wait a couple of days, Biblically speaking. Now you send down this fellow with your message.

We have CNN and the internet. Then these miracles could have meant something. Have him show up at the Pulitzer Prize dinner and turn the water into wine. That would get the attention of those journalists -- they like wine you know. And he could have done the walking on water bit almost anywhere and received some coverage and documentation. That last part is important.

Now I’m told you had to have him tortured and killed for some reason or other. It was part of your plan. No problem. These days the White House would have been happy to do both. They’d grab him off the streets and whip him off someplace where he can be tortured and die for our sins. Now you arrange a Congressional investigation (you would need to give Congress a backbone first) and then have your son walk into the meeting and announced he rose from the dead and was returning to you and so on. CNN would have covered that. CSPAN would run it live.

I assure you that even a skeptic like me would be impressed. We would have documented proof for the things in which the church is supposed to believe. Instead you give us contradictory accounts in unreliable manuscripts translated by people who, all things considered, simply weren’t that bright.

Now that the story of your son is obvious and the book you sent is far more accurate lets talk about some problems you left behind for your church to solve. Again I only bring them up since people died over these things.

Here are a few suggestions to improve your book.

First, add in a clause that says slavery was, is, and always will be wrong. For a lot of history your people never figured that out. In fact they argued you said the opposite.

Next, how about a general clause that says something like: “If any believe not in me, or believe not the things I have taught. Leave them the fuck alone. Do not stone, torture, burn, execute, behead, imprison or harm them in any way. If you do I shall send you to the lake of fire. You understand? And I really, really, really mean it! I’ll deal with it myself.”

And you could have cleared up a few controversies. Do you know you have had some of your people knocking one another’s heads in over baptism? Sure, you did, you supposedly know everything.

So here is what would have helped. First make it clear that baptism is for a specific group. Say it quite clearly as your followers aren’t that bright. Tell them if it is adults or new-borns who should be baptized. And make it clear whether it is sprinkling, pouring or dunking. Now your followers all say you have already made it clear. But just between you and me they don’t agree on this so obviously something got lost in the translation. (See my first point to you on this one.)

Next, would you mind not playing tricks on us? Your followers, well some of them, tell me that the world is only 7,000 years old. Some say 10,000 but what’s three thousand years between friends? But all that stuff that makes it look millions of years old is a tad bit confusing. I’m sure it is amusing to you to look down and watch people fighting over this at school board meetings. But enough with the joking.

Our country is pretty torn apart about a lot of things and right now and we really don’t need another thing to fight over. And this includes that evolution, creation, intelligent design controversy as well. Would it really have been a bad thing if you had the fossil records match what you say you did?

And finally do you think you could be a bit more active? If that isn’t asking too much. I understand you used to wander around all over the place showing yourself in burning bushes and the like. But it’s been thousands of years. That parting of the Red Sea was nice but you could have put in appearance when that tsunami hit a few years back. As that massive wave is heading for shore what if your hand just held he waters so that they rose hundreds in feet into the air and then subsided. Bet you would have had a lot of converts that day.

And finally you know your followers pretty well. Could you work on them a bit more? Give them a sense of humor and make them nicer. Some of them are really nasty people who inflict a lot of pain in your name. Can you have them cool it?

All I’m saying is you could made a bit of effort here. It really would have helped in lots of way. The way it’s been going it’s almost like you aren’t even there.

Yours.

PS: Can you give me a clue as to where to mail this damn thing? Also how much postage is needed? Also, if you get this could you let me know? We really need to talk about this guy in the neighborhood who is really screwing everything up for everyone. His name is George Bush and he says you and he are buddies. You might consider getting a better class of friends.