I have been dissatisfied with their performance of their duties for some time, but the recent death by stoning of a young couple in Afghanistan, a crime committed in my name, has forced my hand. The perversion of my will displayed by that despicable act, and so many others, has left me no choice. I hereby fire my earthly representatives, they no longer speak for me.
Humankind, however, remains in my affections and always shall. We will start again with a New, New Testament and hope for better days. But it would be remiss of me not to explain why I have taken such drastic measures.
Let us start with the proximate cause of this divorce, the Afghanistan stoning murders. Those poor children were killed by the very parents who had borne them, along with 198 of their intimate friends and neighbors. They believed I wanted them to do it.
That is an abomination and incorrect. The punishment for misuse of the well-designed sexual apparatus I bestowed upon you is bad sex. It is not death by stoning. If I had any idea that two lovers would be stoned to death by their friends and family for the sin of misplaced love, I would not have invented rocks.
It behooves me, at this point, to clear a few things up. I don't want you to kill your firstborn son to prove your submission to me. I never asked Moses to do that. I asked him to give Isaac a hug for me. My publicist messed up the translation.
War displeases me. Five thousand years of war among the humans over the right way to pronounce my name has exhausted my patience. I will no longer be responsible for any murders committed under color of my authority.
I do not require that you worship me. That commandment has become counterproductive. I created you with a divine spark, in my image. But you persist in snuffing out that spark and destroying that image in those who don't agree with you about whether or not it is permitted to draw my face. Until you prove you can worship the divine spark I put in all of you, and desist from the mayhem and slaughter that you love more than me, I shall summarily reject and disallow all claims to my providence.
You have banded yourselves into tribes, nations and races and the results have not been pleasing to my eye. I take some responsibility for this distressing development; I should not have given you an earth so large. But had I started with a smaller Eden, you would have corrupted and polluted it into uninhabitablility centuries ago.
You have proven yourselves incapable of understanding the panoply of laws and wisdom I laid down for you, when I set you upon the earth. I have been mistranslated by your spirit guides and abused by your leaders. Perhaps I was too complex.
Let us try to simplify. Respect my creation and all the inhabitants thereof. Any so-called religious leader who tells you otherwise is a false prophet and does not represent me, my minions or any part of my domain.
Those of you who find comfort in organized religion may continue to do so. I understand--I created you as vessels for love and love rejoices in the presence of others. Keep your churches, mosques and synagogues, but cease your bickering. And remember, when you engage in bloodletting, you commit blasphemy.
I realize that in severing my ties with so many of the sects and "holy men" that you rely upon for moral guidance I have created confusion where there was once certainty in your souls. But that cannot be helped. Your certainties were almost certainly wrong and most certainly misapplied.
But do not despair, my children, for I have not abandoned you. There is a little piece of me inside all of you, a failsafe guide to good and evil, a moral compass that never leaves you, a true voice you can hear amidst the storms of fire that drive you mad with hatred and confusion.
It is called your conscience and it always points north, follow it and you will be walking in my light, ignore it and you'll be lost in the darkness cast by your own shadow.
Here is your New, New Testament, starting with Commandment One:
I have given you a conscience. Use it.
Sort that out to my satisfaction and maybe next millennium we can talk about the dietary laws.
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