spiralofhope

   "But enough chitchat about trivialities," said "God," getting up.
"I've got a lot more important things to do than shoot the shit with you
about My wild and crazy youth.  Like take My eternal break, for example,
which is too short as it is."  He clasped His hands behind Him and
began to slowly pace.  "You asked Me why I called you here today."  Here
He wheeled and skewered "Bob" with a very grave, if slightly bloodshot,
look.  "Your Prophet's License is up for renewal."
   "Bob's" jaw dropped.  "Already?"
   "Time flies, eternity waits."
   "Does this mean I have to reapply all over again?"
   "No.  You just have to take the oral.  And we better jam on it:  I've
gotta run off a whole buncha these today."  He gestured towards the
window to the outer office.  Through it "Bob" could see Christ,
Mohammed, Gautama Buddha, Zoroaster, Ramakrishna, Gurdjieff, Werner
Erhard, Edgar Cayce, Mary Baker Eddy, L. Ron Hubbard, Dr. Gene Scott and
several others in a kind of waiting room, flipping through old READER'S
DIGEST.
   "There's a possible twenty-one points in all," began "God."  "Twenty
questions, and the last one counts double.  They start out easy and get
harder.  Question number one:  What is freedom?"
   "Oh that's easy.  Slavery of choice."
   "Very good.  Two:  What is science?"
   "Everyone's personal religion."
   "And religion?"
   "Somebody else's science:  speculation."
   "I see you've done your homework.  Four:  What is insanity?"
   "The state of being insufficiently neurotic."
   "And neurosis?"
   "Personality."
   "And why is that?"
   "Because consciousness always needs to have a style."
   "Seven.  This one's a little tougher.  A fish is to water as the mind
is to...?"
   "Um...information?"
   "No.  Falsehood.  One wrong.  What do all the evils in the world have
in common?"
   "They're all necessary ones."
   "Correct.  And who commits them?"
   "Everyone?"
   "No.  Everyone else.  Two wrong.  What are the two great keys to
lifelong happiness and what great modern thinker discovered them?"
   "Oh that's easy.  Good health and a bad memory.  Ingrid Bergman."
   "To whom is all religious, moral, political, scientific and artistic
preaching directed?"
   "The converted."
   "And what is the most important information in any message?"
   "The name of the messenger."
   "What, did you cram for this?  Thirteen:  Why do some people believe
in Me?"
   "Because You exist?"
   "Of course not, silly.  Personally I think I definitely might, but
that's irrelevant.  Because they're afraid not to.  And why do other
people not believe in Me?"
   "Hmm.  Because they're afraid to?"
   "No.  Trick question.  Everyone believes in God.  They just don't
believe in someone ELSE'S God."
   "But...what about atheists?"
   "Hell, they need more faith than ANYONE:  They gotta believe in
EVERYTHING!  Anyway, I should know:  Who d'ya think invented faith in
the first place, for God's sakes, Oral Roberts?  And I did it long
before I shrink-wrapped Homo sapiens to fit AROUND it, believe Me."
   "But what about scientists, who--"
   "SCIENTISTS?  All those guys DO is make up new names for Me.  For
example, their latest one is "the Big Bang," by using which they
actually think they're believing in something else--just by changing the
name!  But you notice they're always very careful to capitalize
it...Speaking of which, let's move on to the next section:  cosmology.
Which is greater:  the number of stars or the number of universes?"
   "Um...neither.  They're exactly the same."
   "Actually, not exactly, but close enough.  At any given time, the
number of universes exceed the number of stars by an average of 1,341:
close enough to be negligible.  Here's another easy one:  What's a
black hole?"
   "The house arrest of the four dimensions?"
   "No.  My empty grave.  Seventeen:  Is the universe composed of waves
or particles?"
   "Both."
   "Wrong.  Neither.  The universe consists of infinitesimal looped
strings vibrating in ten dimensions."
   "What happened to the other six?"
   "Fell down and got lost in the cracks between the first four in the
first moment of creation.  In fact, you should have gotten that one:
It was just discovered recently by a human physicist at Princeton named
Edward Witten.  Can you name the OTHER two of the only three humans in
history whose theories on the nature of reality were correct?"
   "Umm...Einstein, and...Buddha?"
   "Both wrong.  One was the Cabalist sage Isaac ben Solomon Luria, who
in the sixteenth century correctly surmised, in his theory of zimzum, or
contraction, that My first act of creation was to retract Myself from
existence, in order to make room for the world.  In fact," He murmured
confidentially, "what the physicists AND the Cabalists don't realize is,
I AM the other six dimensions!"
   "And who was the third correct human?"
   "The painter Salvador Dali, who astutely noted that the universe is
not vast and expanding at all, but is in fact smaller than a butterfly
and contracting to a single point somewhere in a railway station in
Perpignan, France.  But enough science.  Final question.  It's a tough
one, especially for a clergyman, and it counts double, so you get three
tries.  What is the greatest enemy of truth?"
   "Bob" concentrated.  "Ah...the self?"
   "Close."
   "Fear?"
   "Closer."
   "Belief?"
   "Still closer, but no Pipe."  "God" spoke into the intercom.  "Horus,
could You please page the next Anointed?"
   "But wait a minute--" blurted "Bob."  "What's the answer?"
   "God" smiled at him sympathetically.  "Consensus."
   In the outer office "Bob" could see all the prophets gathering around
a single desk, clutching paper tickets.  A voice was calling out
numbers.  "Number nineteen?  Is number nineteen here?...Number
twenty?"  "Bob" stood up.
   "So what's my grade?" he asked.  "Did I pass the test?"
   "Oh yeah, easily.  With flying colors."
   "On only eleven points out of twenty-one?"
   "Oh, the test itself is just a formality:  a buncha red tape I hafta
hassle with so's My ass is covered, for Personnel.  There's really only
one requirement for a prophet, and you've got it."
   "What's that?"
   "A mouth."