With God, it’s not all murder, blood, guts, and gore (no, not Al), sometimes God simply wants people to do what he says and not exercise all that freewill that was purportedly left floating around as his gift to man. When God says he wants something, he wants to make sure he is not misunderstood, and the best way to do that is to make sure descriptions are phrased so that there’s something in it for everyone. For example, in the tale of Nineveh, God told Jonah (the original Pinocchio) to go into the city and preach to them, and to tell them that he is “Jealous and avenging” and “Avenging and wrathful” and God also “takes vengeance and keeps wrath” (Nahum 1:2). Well, I know that is not a crime in itself, sure, God needs some counseling, but being a wee bit greeny-eyed and having a penchant for a bit of eye-to-tooth justice doesn’t make him a criminal…does it? If you keep it to yourself, well no…But like all things God, why create sentient beings if you’ve got to keep all your inhibitions and planetoid chips to yourself!? No, this week’s Godcrime is a simple matter of employing terrorism, threats and extortion to get your own way. A crime in itself, though for most faithful, simply a God-day’s work.
So…where was I…sure, so he sends blubber-boy into the thick of the fray and says “Jonno, mate, go forth and preach to those sinners down there that I’ve done my share of chemistry, transmutation and firing up of kilns, and that I intend to dry out all their beer, let their weed wither, and block out the barbie weather with the dust of my feet”. So Jonno goes down to the city, and tells them all about God’s plans to rebuke the sea, dry up the beer, the rivers – all of them of course – carry out a bit of general withering, quaking of mountains, some melting of hills, and do a bit of heaving—which without the beer and subsequent hangovers may actually be difficult to explain, but the Lord is pretty Almighty and he maketh even the mostest soberest of crawling things vomiteth.
Happy-ending is of course that God gets his own way so does not carry out his fantasies—this time. Where’s the crime? Well, the people were not actually doing anything patently illegal or damaging, the city was flourishing, people were having a good time and God didn’t like it…they should be praying on their bloody knees and thinking about him 24/7. God threatens, tells them a little bit about his complexes and that he really will do it, and the city-dwellers decide not to eat or drink and wear sacks as a sign of humility and repentance. God wins…not with reason, explanation and fairness, but with plain, old-fashioned bullying. Not a crime to string God up over, but certainly one that would have to be taken seriously in a court of law…except maybe in Italy…
