Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology (11 page)

So here’s a religion you may have heard of.

In fact, I am willing to bet that nine out of ten of you

when you hear the word “religion”

think of this one first.

But did you know

that this popular high-school jock of religions

is JUST AS SUPREMELY MESSED UP as all the other ones?

Yeah, no foolin’.

And it’s even crazier

because what masquerades as a single holy book

is actually more like a short-story collection by like a million crazy desert dudes!

I’m mainly gonna focus on the Old Testament in this section

because the Old Testament God gets up to some seriously brutal shit

but the New Testament

(the one with Jesus in it and stuff)

is messed up in a whole other way.

OKAY, ENOUGH TALK

LET THE FIASCOS BEGIN!

Okay so God, right?

No, I didn’t leave out any letters up there.

That is not a typo.

No, see, in this pantheon

THERE IS ONLY ONE GOD.

I KNOW.

PRETTY LAME.

But anyway, this God guy is facing a problem that you should be pretty familiar with at this point.

The problem is that there is water AND NOTHING ELSE.

ALSO IT’S SUPER DARK.

So BAM, he invents light, day one

and then he misses the dark part so he invents night too

and then he’s like “Oh, looks like it’s nighttime.

Better go to sleep.”

DAY TWO:

God basically just makes a big divider right in the middle of the water

and all the water below the line is earth

and all the water above the line is heaven.

(This is why angels are traditionally depicted wearing scuba gear.)

Day three is when God finally gets around to inventing dry land.

Seriously?

It took Ra like all of thirty seconds

to invent dry land AND HIMSELF.

Is this just not something that occurred to God until he had two nights to sleep on it?

Oh, and he makes plants too.

On day four God invents the sun and the moon and the stars

which begs the question

WHERE WAS THE LIGHT COMING FROM BEFORE?

And then he’s like “Oh shit, the moon.

Better go to sleep.”

This dude needs an awful lot of sleep for an omnipotent dude

which may explain why wars happen.

So on day five, God invents animals.

ESPECIALLY WHALES.

The Bible is very specific on this point.

By day six, God is pretty pleased.

He’s like “Wow, this is awesome.

How can I ruin it?”

So he invents mankind

and also cows

because he forgot about cows.

Then he gets real hammered to celebrate

and he passes out on Saturday

and doesn’t wake up until MONDAY.

In fact he sleeps through Sunday SO HARD

that NO ONE IS ALLOWED TO DO WORK ON SUNDAY EVER AGAIN.

That is a true power nap.

So when he finally wakes up

he makes this garden called the Garden of Eden

and he puts the guy he made in there

and the man (whose name is Adam) is like “God, I’m bored.”

and God is like “Ooh, I know a great game we can play.

It’s called name all the animals.

Ready? Go.”

So Adam falls for this transparent ruse to get him to do God’s work for him

and he names all the animals

but then he gets done doing that and he is like “Still bored, God.”

And God is like “Okay, I got this.”

And BAM

knocks him out and steals one of his ribs.

This is some straight-up Tijuana shit is what this is.

So Adam wakes up in a bathtub full of ice

like “Whaaaat happened?”

and God is like “Look, dude, I made you a chick.

She is made of your rib, so she might be kinda dumb

I tried just making one out of clay, like how I made you

but she was harboring all these problematic delusions of equality

so I had to find a workaround

anyway, she’s totally hot, so don’t worry about it.

Oh, by the way, I should warn you guys

you can totally eat from any tree in the garden

EXCEPT FOR THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL

THAT ONE OVER THERE

THE TOTALLY UNGUARDED ONE WITH THE DELICIOUS-LOOKING APPLES”

and Adam and Eve are like “Okay, whatever dude”

(Eve is the name of the chick God made, by the way)

and they go off somewhere to bone.

But there is a SERPENT in this garden.

I think he is supposed to be Satan

but really I think he’s just a serpent who happens to be a big jerk.

This serpent runs up on Eve when she is off on her own

and he is like “Hey, gurl, try one of these apples.”

And Eve is like “YOU MEAN THE APPLES OF KNOWLEDGE?

THE ONES THAT GOD EXPLICITLY FORBID US FROM EATING??

NOOOO WAY.”

And the serpent is like “No, come on.”

And Eve is like “Okay.”

So she eats the apple

and it is DELICIOUS

and so she takes the rest of it to Adam, all like “Here, eat this.”

And Adam is like “What? No, God said if we ate that then we would die or something.”

And Eve is like “Uhhh . . . totally still alive over here.”

And Adam is like “Okay, fair point.”

So he eats the apple

and suddenly both of them realize HOW INCREDIBLY NAKED THEY ARE.

THIS IS WHAT THE TREE DOES

IT LETS YOU KNOW YOU’RE NAKED

THE MYTHICAL TREE OF KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL

COULD HAVE EASILY BEEN REPLACED

BY A FIVE-DOLLAR MIRROR FROM A COLOMBIAN BROTHEL.

So they make themselves some clothes, ’cause they’re embarrassed

and then God wakes up from one of his meganaps

and he’s like “HEY

WHO THE FUCK TOLD YOU YOU WERE NAKED?”

See, this was his big plan.

His big plan was just to look at naked people all day.

Now the plan is ruined so he responds in the rational way

which is to put curses on everybody and then kick them out of his garden.

He curses the serpent to have to crawl on its belly forever

apparently forgetting that that is what SERPENTS DO ALL THE TIME

and he curses Eve to undergo tremendous pain during childbirth

because apparently he is able to imagine some crazy parallel universe

where pushing something the size of a screaming football out of your vag

is somehow NOT INCREDIBLY PAINFUL

and then he curses Adam to toil endlessly

and Adam is like “Come on!

Couldn’t you just curse me to like . . .

have testicles or something?”

But by then he is already kicked out of Eden

and there is a big flaming sword guarding the door

and there is nothing left to do

but have a bunch of kids and try to forget the whole fiasco.

So the moral of the story

is to never be naked

because God is a creepy pervert who invented you so he could look at your junk.

So Adam and Eve know each other.

Oh wait

I read that wrong.

Adam and Eve totally have SEX with each other.

It’s just that the Bible is cagey about shit like that

so instead of writing “Adam boned Eve in a moist, raunchy sex fiasco.”

the Bible guys would put “Adam KNEW Eve in a moist, raunchy sex fiasco.”

It’s awesome once you know about it

and now you do.

BUT SO ANYWAY

Adam and Eve bang the daylights out of each other

and they have two kids: Cain and Abel

and these dudes are farmers

because what else are they gonna do?

No one has built any of the cool stuff yet.

So Abel becomes a sheep farmer

and Cain becomes a vegetables farmer.

Then harvest time comes

(I am guessing that harvest time for sheep is whenever they start to piss you off)

and Abel makes an offering to the LORD

(always in all caps, by the way)

of like, the fattest sheep he owns.

Dude, he could have totally eaten that.

MEANWHILE

Cain makes an offering

of all his choicest vegetables

and God gets all of these things

and he is like “OH SNAP

DELICIOUS LAMB MEAT

THAT I HAVE NO USE FOR BECAUSE I AM IMMORTAL AND OMNIPOTENT AND STUFF.

GOOD JOB, ABEL.

BUT WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT, CAIN?

VEGETABLES?

IF I WANTED TO EAT VEGETABLES

WHY DO YOU THINK I INVENTED MEAT HUH?

YOU’RE NOT MY DAD, CAIN.

YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT’S BEST FOR ME.”

So Cain goes and hits up Abel later.

He’s like “Yo, bro

God really dug your offering, huh?”

and Abel is like “Yeah, well, it was pretty sweet.”

And Cain is like “Yeah . . . yeah . . .

Hey listen, I actually dug something of yours as well.”

And Abel is like “Oh yeah, what is it?”

And Cain is like “YOUR GRAVE, MOTHERFUCKER!”

Then he stabs him and puts him underground

thus SINGLE-HANDEDLY INVENTING MURDER.

Yeah

before this, murder didn’t even exist.

Cain is seriously like the Thomas Edison of stabbing people.

So pretty soon God comes poking around

like “HEY, ABEL

ME AND THE HOLY GHOST ARE HAVING A BARBECUE.

GOT ANY MORE OF THAT DELICIOUS LAMB MEAT?”

And then he sees Cain and he’s like “OH HEY, DIPSHIT

NO, I DON”T WANT ANY VEGETABLES

THERE IS NOT GOING TO BE A ‘VEGAN OPTION’ AT THIS BARBECUE.

HEY, HAVE YOU SEEN YOUR BROTHER ANYWHERE?”

And Cain is like “What? Noooo.

What am I, my brother’s babysitter or some shit?

Find him yourself.”

And God is like “Oh hold on, I’m getting a phone call.

Hello?

Oh hi, Abel’s blood.

What’s that?

Cain murdered you and hid you underground

foolishly believing that six feet of dirt would obscure you from THE OMNISCIENT CREATOR?!

YOU DON’T SAY.

CAIN, YOU ARE SO GETTING PUNISHED.”

So he curses Cain so that the earth will refuse to get farmed by him

and he has to roam forever and everyone will hate him

and Cain is like “But, Godddd

now everyone I meet is just gonna kill me.”

And God is like “Oh, good point.

How about I make a law that says no one can kill you

and I put a mark on you to let everyone know that you are a dude not to kill?”

And Cain is like “Uh . . .
yes.
”

At this stage of the Bible, God is not very good at coming up with punishments.

Don’t worry, he gets way better.

But yeah, then Cain goes off to live in the land of Nod

and everyone is either unhappy or dead or omnipotent.

So the moral of the story

is that God hates vegetarians.

Seriously?

SERIOUSLY?

Okay, here we go:

So one day this guy named Abraham is out working in the fields

and God is like “Abraham! Abraham! Hey!”

Abraham is like “Chill out, I’m right here. What do you want?”

And God is like “You know your son?”

And Abraham is like “My only son? Yeah, you could say I know him.”

And God is like “Okay, here’s what I want you to do:

I want you to take your son

up to a mountain that I’m gonna show you

and I want you to kill him and set him on fire for me.”

And Abraham is like “Okay, well I guess you know what you’re doing.”

So Abraham goes and gets his son

and he’s like “Come on, son, let’s go on a nice father-son trip to a mountain that God will show us.

We are going to make a blood sacrifice it will be a great bonding experience.”

So they start going to the mountain

along with some donkeys, and some slaves which God is apparently cool with

and Abraham makes his son carry the wood

and he carries the fire and the knife

and halfway there, his son is like

“Uhh, Dad?”

And Abraham is like “What?”

And his son is like “Dad where is the lamb we’re gonna sacrifice?”

And Abraham is like “Uh . . . well . . . God is going to provide a lamb for us, son.”

HE IS REMARKABLY CALM ABOUT THIS WHOLE THING.

PERHAPS FOR ABRAHAM

ONE SON IS TOO MANY SONS.

So anyway, they get to the mountain

and Abraham straps his son down

and his son doesn’t say anything

presumably because the level of shitty parenting going on here has rendered him speechless

and Abraham raises up the knife

and God is like “WHOA, WHOA, ABRAHAM!!!!”

and Abraham is like “WHAT?!

I’m kind of in the middle of something right now.”

And God is like “Haha, PSYCH!

I was totally just kidding about the whole sacrificing your son thing.

But, dude, that was HARD-CORE.

Tell you what, man

I like a man with big balls

so how about I make it so that your children WILL OUTNUMBER THE STARS IN THE SKY.”

And Abraham is like “WHAT

THAT IS TOO MANY KIDS.”

and God is like “Haha, no need to thank me, buddy.

Your thoughtless attempted sacrifice of your own son is all the thanks I need.”

And then Abraham finds a ram

which he sacrifices to God instead of his son

and then I guess the two of them go home

or actually, they go to a place called Beersheba

which is clearly the party city of ancient times

and I like to imagine that they partied so hard

that afterward they had to go to Bathsheba just to wash the stank off

and things are pretty awkward between Abraham and his son from then on

but it’s okay, because Abraham has a ton more kids.

So the moral of the story

is that it’s never a bad idea

to try to set your kids on fire

as long as the voices tell you so.