The Trouble with God

by Chris Matheson

  Then Jesus said something that literally made God gasp: “I am Jesus Christ and I created the heavens and the earth and all things that in them are.” (BOM, 3N 9:15)

  Jesus turned and looked straight at God at that moment, his eyes fierce and compelling. God found that he couldn’t move. Then, strangely, he heard himself speaking in a tiny little voice. (BOM, 3N 11:3) “Behold my Beloved Son,” God heard himself murmuring, “in whom I am well pleased, in whom I have glorified my name, hear ye him.”

  At that moment, Jesus turned sharply away from God and marched straight down out of heaven. (Heaven was kind of like a floating island in the sky, by the way, approximately 1,500 feet up. It was currently floating over North America. It’d take a few hours to “speed-float” it over to the Middle East.) People on Earth stared up in stunned disbelief as Jesus descended toward them like he was striding down an invisible glass staircase. Reaching the ground, Jesus stopped and looked around at the gathered crowd.

  “I am Jesus Christ,” he announced, followed a moment later by “I have drunk out of that bitter cup my Father has given me,” and then, “I have suffered the will of the Father.” (BOM, 3N 11:11) And God thought to himself at that moment: “Okay, it’s official, Jesus is pissed.”

  Jesus encouraged the crowd of Nephites to thrust their hands into his wounds, which God found both disgusting—he’d honestly had to fight off the urge to vomit, watching all those filthy hands plunging in and out of his son’s gaping side—but also pointed. “Go ahead, feel what my Father did to me, feel my wounds,” that had been Jesus’ message, God was quite sure of it. (At that point, Jesus started saying a lot of the exact same things he’d said in the New Testament—like, I mean, literally the same things. Which God thought wasn’t especially imaginative.) (BOM, 3N 12:1–14:27)

  Jesus then organized a weird, ritualistic little dance where children were placed in the middle of a circle of fire and angels spun around them. God hadn’t approved of this. “If you’re going to have a fire, you have to burn people, Jesus, that’s kind of the whole point,” he muttered to himself impatiently as he watched this creepy voodoo dance transpire. (BOM, 3N 17:24)

  When Jesus finally marched back up his invisible staircase to heaven (BOM, 3N 18:39), God thought to himself: “Well, that’s over, at least.” God had been getting ready to transport Jesus back down into his dead body in Jerusalem (“though the truth is, I probably could just let him walk back down at this point, couldn’t I?”), but before he could do anything, Jesus had stomped back down to Earth. (“His sense of timing was off too,” God later noted. “No one in this idiotic book seemed to have any dramatic timing at all.”) Jesus then demanded that people kneel down and pray to him as their God. (BOM, 3N 19:17–22) When they had done so, he looked up and spoke directly to God. “They believe in me, Father,” Jesus said. “They pray to me. Me, Father, ME.” And as Jesus said this, for the one and only time that God could ever remember, he smiled. (BOM, 3N 19:25)

  Jesus then started promising the Nephites that New Jerusalem (aka “Heaven”) would be located in North America. “That is not true, I never EVER said that!” God seethed. New Jerusalem was going to be Old Jerusalem basically, just upgraded, with a bunch of shiny, jewel-covered buildings, that’s all. (NT, Rev. 21:9–21) (It was incorrect to compare New Jerusalem to “Caesar’s Palace,” but okay, fine, that was at least a ballpark idea of what it would be like, minus all the vices, obviously; Caesar’s Palace filled with praying people in white robes who had “GOD” tattooed on their foreheads in big block letters, yes, that gives you a rough approximation of what New Jerusalem would be like.) Then Jesus walked back up to heaven again. (BOM, 3N 26:15) “He’s treating my home like it’s a Ramada—” God had started to cavil, but before he could even finish the sentence, Jesus had stomped back down to Earth yet again. (BOM, 3N 27:13) “Okay, I officially have zero idea what he’s doing at this point,” God thought to himself.

  Jesus then turned three people immortal and invited them up to heaven to look around. Needless to say, this enraged God. He hated strangers in his home. He yelled at the three visitors, called them unspeakable names, and quickly chased them away. (BOM, 3N 28:13) God then tried to kill the three Immortals by having them buried alive (BOM, 3N 28:20), but that didn’t work. “Deeper,” God cried to his people. “Bury them DEEPER!” Next God tried to have the Immortals cooked in an oven, but that didn’t work either. (BOM, 3N 28:21) He then had them tossed into a den of wolves. “Tear ‘em apart,” God whispered optimistically to the wolves—but dammit, the three Immortals just ended up playing with the animals! (BOM, 3N 28:22) (Eventually, God figured out a way to get rid of the Immortals: He had them dropped into thermal vents at what would later be called Yellowstone National Park.)

  When Jesus marched back up to heaven for the third and final time in the Book of Mormon, God exhaled heavily. “What a clusterfuck,” he murmured to himself.

  CHAPTER TWENTY–TWO

  Three hundred years after Jesus’ supposedly “transformative” visit, basically everyone in North America was bad. (BOM, 4N 1:45) The Gadianton robbers had returned and war had covered the entire continent. Every now and then, God roused himself from his general stupor and killed a bunch of people. “Vengeance is mine!” he had found himself bellowing at one point (BOM, Mor. 3:15), but then immediately afterward he wondered: “Vengeance on whom? This is my plan.”

  “But what exactly is my plan?” God had begun to ask himself by this point. The story he had told Joseph Smith, that basically the Book of Mormon was a warning, that God had created a thousand years of failure, lasting from 600 BC to 400 AD, simply so that 1,400 years later in 1820 he could use all that failure as an example of what not to do? Well, if that were true, it would be the most dementedly self-hating plan ever devised. “Who would use their own failure as a cautionary?” God had demanded.

  Near the end of the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith had started translating some very different-looking plates, which had apparently been created by an entirely distinct tribe, the Jaredites, who had apparently traveled to North America at a much earlier time. At first this realization had cheered God greatly. “I think maybe this part of the book went better,” he had thought to himself. “I’m sure it did, in fact. Why, I got along famously with the Jaredites. I cloud-talked to them for hours!” (BOM, Eth. 2:14) It’s true that God had gotten a little bit peeved when that main guy, Jared’s brother, hadn’t called him “Lord,” but it hadn’t been that big of a deal; God was in a cloud, Jared’s brother probably hadn’t even seen him, he’d probably assumed the cloud was talking to him. (God did wonder why he hadn’t talked to Jared himself instead of his brother. Alternately, why hadn’t he at least learned Jared’s brother’s name?)

  “I told the Jaredites to travel to North America too!” God had recalled. “I gave them extremely specific boat-building suggestions! ‘Make your boat tight, like a dish,’ I kept repeating to Jared’s brother.” (BOM, Eth. 2:17–24) “But now we can’t breathe, Lord,” Jared’s brother complained. “Fine, then cut holes in the boat,” God responded. “But now we can’t see, Lord.” “What do you want from me, Jared’s brother?” God shot back, starting to feel irritated with this guy. “Here, I’ll give you some magical glowing rocks so you can see.” (BOM, Eth. 3:6) God stuck one mighty finger down from heaven and touched some rocks, instantly turning them magical. (God hadn’t been thrilled that Jared’s brother had seen his finger. He had always been slightly self-conscious about his fingers. “Are they too short?” he had sometimes asked his angels. They had always said no, that God’s fingers were long and beautiful, which he had already known obviously; he hadn’t needed to be told that.)

  But it had been at this moment of the translation of the Jaredite plates that God once again felt the ice cracking under his feet. “I am Jesus Christ,” the voice in the cloud told Jared’s brother. (BOM, Eth. 3:14) And … what?! That could not possibly be right. These events were occurring in the year 3000 BC! Jesus could not possibly be there
; he didn’t even exist until the year 600 BC!

  “I am the Father and the Son,” the cloud-voice had continued. “He is claiming to be me,” God gasped. “He is claiming that mankind was made in his image!” (BOM, Eth. 3:15) What the hell was happening here? This didn’t make any sense! How could Jesus have existed from the beginning of the story and also been God’s son? “In what sense would he be ‘my son’ in that case?” God’s mind demanded.

  It had been exceedingly painful over the years for God to wonder whether things had gone badly for him because he had wanted them to, but now an even more excruciating possibility had suddenly presented itself: Perhaps things had gone badly because God hadn’t actually even been running them. If Jesus could sneak into God’s book and send people into God’s secret continent 2,400 years early, then how much control had God really had over this whole thing? This was horrifying. This was infuriating. This was—

  God suddenly laughed. Then he laughed again, even harder. And then again and again, harder and harder until he was laughing so hard that he almost couldn’t breathe, until he had tears streaming down his face. Why was God laughing? Because as the story of the Jaredites rolled on, something had become increasingly obvious: The Jaredites were terrible too! (BOM, Eth. 7:23) “Oh my god,” God howled with amazed glee. “Jesus’ big plan went as badly as mine! He’s no better at this than me! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!”

  Then God found himself laughing even harder. “The main character in the book is now literally named MORON,” he cried giddily. (BOM, Eth. 11:14) Every time God read the sentence, “And it came to pass that in the first year of Lib, Coriantumr came up into the land of Moron” (BOM, Eth. 14:11), he howled uproariously. “This whole book takes place in the land of Moron if you ask me,” he sputtered in merriment. In the end, all the people that Jesus sent into North America had ended up dead, every last one of them. (BOM, Eth. 15:29–32) “Well played, son!” God snorted. “Beautifully played!!” A few days later, God experienced a delightful realization. “Oh my goodness,” he thought, a broad grin slowly creasing his face. “I think maybe this was my plan after all!”

  In time, however, God’s laughter subsided and then stopped completely. In time, the Book of Mormon began to weigh heavily on him. “Who would have a three-thousand-year plan designed to fail?” he found himself wondering. “It makes no sense.” It had to be a misunderstanding, God decided. The humans obviously misunderstood him. Yes, that was obviously the problem—it always had been. But that had led to another question: Why had the humans always misunderstood God? What exactly was their damned problem?

  This question had nagged at God for well over a hundred years until, in the year 1952, out of the blue, almost like a miracle, a man appeared to answer it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY–THREE

  “Now that is a man I can get behind!” God had proclaimed when he first laid eyes on L. Ron Hubbard. L. Ron was not technically a “prophet”—God was not speaking directly to him, that is. But God was definitely present while L. Ron was writing; “It was a collaboration,” that’s how God looked at it. “L. Ron wrote Dianetics, but I was right there with him the whole time, believe me!” (God loved that L. Ron called himself “L. Ron,” by the way. It was so much better than his real name, the semi-embarrassing “Lafayette Hubbard.” “‘Lafayette Hubbard,’ what kind of a pussy name is that? ‘L. Ron!’ Now that is a man’s name!” God liked the name so much, in fact, that for a while he took to calling himself “A. God Hubbard” and sometimes “L. Ron God.”)

  From the start, God appreciated L. Ron’s great confidence. “My theory is perfect,” L. Ron had announced. “It works 100 percent of the time, with no exceptions and zero variance. (D, TC; TRM; MAAOT) It is not a ‘theory’ at all, in truth, but rather scientific fact (D, TRM; TD; TMP; TCATO; P-SI; EATLF, MAAOT; D-PAF), as real as gravity!” (D, PD) “At last,” God thought to himself, reading this over L. Ron’s shoulder and nodding broadly, “A man who is not too shy to admit that he has a streamlined machine of a mind—a mind far superior to Aristotle’s! (D, EATLF; PEAB; RTFCATT) At last, a man unembarrassed to acknowledge that he is destined to soar toward greatness and triumph!” (D, MAAOT)

  Because here’s the thing: L. Ron had reason to be so confident. His diagnosis of what ailed mankind had been spot-on, God felt. John Calvin had been correct back in the day, of course; humans were bad from the time they were in the womb. But what Calvin had not explained was why that was so. L. Ron laid it out with absolute scientific certainty. In the beginning, L. Ron explained, humans were, essentially, sperm. All humans could remember being sperm. (D, PEAB) (They could not remember being eggs, obviously, because eggs were essentially lifeless, or at the very least, “personality-less”; “Who cares about eggs? No one!” God had quite often cried out to no in particular. “Seed is the important thing and it always was, seed I tell you, SEED!”) Humans remembered EVERYTHING, that’s the point, beginning from when they were sperm, and after that, their life in the womb.

  But that’s where the problems really began, L. Ron had explained. Life in the womb was, to be frank, horrid. It was cramped, noisy, and humid in there. (D, PEAB; TLOR; MAAOT) It was horrible enough when Mommy had the hiccups, or farted (D, MAAOT)—those disgusting creaks and groans were terribly upsetting to Baby and led to what L. Ron called “engrams,” meaning deep emotional problems. Worse yet was when Mommy had to take a dump and was constipated and sat on the toilet, pushing and straining and talking to herself. “This is hell,” Mommy said. “I am all clogged up, I can’t even think straight, this is excruciating.” (D, TLOR)

  Even more horrible was when Mommy masturbated—that was terribly engram inducing. (D, MAAOT) But worst of all was when “coitus” occurred, when Daddy’s penis came poking in at Baby (D, K-ITE; PD, TLOR), and especially when he came, which he said he wouldn’t do and which Mommy didn’t want him to do—“Don’t come in me, you cold fish,” she cried (D, TLOR)—but which of course he did anyway, and as he did, the things Daddy yelled out—well, they were far too appalling to repeat, but just to give you a flavor, “Take that, you filthy whore!” (D, K-ITE) Sometimes, grotesquely, Mommy came too. “Come,” Daddy demanded of her, and she did, crying out, “Make it hurt!” as she did. (D, STOE)

  “Get an abortion, you lousy whore,” Daddy would then say as he beat Mommy and kicked her in the stomach. Once Daddy knew that Mommy was pregnant, things got even worse for Baby. “I’m going to kill you, bitch,” Daddy would yell as he kneed Mommy in the stomach. (D, TCATO; STOE; MAAOT) “Go ahead and scream, the more you scream the worse it’ll be for you! God is going to hurt you because you’re unclean,” (that part was true, by the way) “but before he does, I’m going to tear you up inside!” (D, MAAOT) Daddy would then smash Mommy in the face, breaking her nose, and have coitus with her again. “You’re filthy and diseased and I hate you, Mommy, I HATE YOU because you make me feel like nothing!” Daddy would shriek. (D, MAAOT) “Now go get an abortion, you filthy whore!”

  But the truth is, Mommy wanted an abortion anyway! (D, PD; EATLF) Mommy didn’t want Baby, no one wanted Baby, no one ever cared about him or loved him, ever. Mothers didn’t want children; twenty or thirty abortions was not an unusual thing; why, some women had up to eighty abortions! (D, PD; MAAOT) (The only valid reason to get an abortion, by the way, was when the child was going to be, you know, a monstrosity. [D, PD] Other than that, it was an awful, terrible thing to do. Although … if the “mongrel” races were aborted—well, that might be okay too.) (D, COA)

  All this brutality led Baby to feel that no one loved him—that he was ugly and bad—that he deserved to be punished—that everyone hated him. Baby was unable to leave his penis alone, he was drawn to it, and that led him deep into aberration. (D, MAAOT) “You are no good,” Baby began to tell himself. “You are no damned good.” “This is amazing,” God had thought at that point. “L. Ron has finally diagnosed what is wrong with mankind! He has finally made clear why they have been so impossible to get through to!” (Or he had
explained men anyway. God hadn’t much cared what the problem was with women—or, to be brutally honest, with little girls either. Q: If a grown man felt the need to “French kiss” a seven-year-old girl, was there anything “wrong” with that? A: Nope, not in the least, and if the little girl said there was, well, she had engrams, [D, MAAOT] possibly resulting from when she had been “raped” as a nine-day-old fetus, inside Mommy’s womb. [D, K-ITE] Because as for actual child rape? It simply was not that big of a deal. [D, TLOR])

  Was human life a hopeless endeavor then? Not at all! There was a way out of all this pain and confusion, L. Ron taught, and it turned out to be remarkably simple too: Essentially, all that needed to happen was for the suffering person to be hypnotized (or, you know, not “hypnotized” exactly, the person had to undergo something far more scientific than that, a kind of “scientific hypnosis”) (D, P-SI; EATLF) and led back to the womb, where they could reexperience Mommy taking a dump or deliberately walking into a table to crush their head (D, PEAB; PD) or how it felt when Daddy’s penis poked them in the eye. At that point, they could be healed and move on. They could, using another one of L. Ron’s wonderful terms, “go clear.” And once that happened, well, life changed dramatically for them.

  Clears, you see, never ever got upset or emotional. Clears were calm, focused, and lucid at all times, never subject to bad feelings or resentments of any kind. (D, TC) Once you went clear, you would become 100–150 times smarter. (D, TD; ROC; RTFCATTT) You would also never get sick (D, P-SI; TRM): no arthritis, no allergies, no colds, no baldness, no rashes, no stuttering, no oversized ears, no undersized penises, not even any off-key singing! By going clear you would essentially become a perfect person! (D, ROC; EATLF; MAAOT)