The Scathing Atheist

by Noah Lugeons

Late last night, God spoke to me.

“Noah…” he said in a rumbling whisper.  I rolled a bit in my sleep, unsure if I was dreaming or awake.

“Noah…” he said again.

“Ben Affleck?” I asked, hoping against all odds that he was finally abiding by the restraining order.

“No, it’s God,” he explained.

I sighed warily and sat up, glancing quickly to my wife to see if I’d awakened her.  “God?” I asked.

“God,” he clarified.

“Look, I don’t mean to be a dick, but is this something that can wait until morning?  I’ve been drinking…”

“I had nothing to do with Bieber winning that VMA.”

“What?”

“I actually prefer Bruno Mars.”

“Who?”

“But I’ve got plenty of problems dealing with the drought in Africa.  I didn’t even get to watch the VMAs this year.”

“God, I’m really tired,” I complained, but I knew this wouldn’t shut him up.

“Yeah, I guess that’s kind of off topic anyway.  Sorry.  Just wanted to make that clear.  I’m so sick of Justin Bieber that I’m about ready to smite him.  Could you imagine?  One piece of brimstone… BAM.  One more lonely girl if you know what I mean.”

“You know I’m an atheist, right?”

“Yeah, that’s actually why I’m here.”

Convinced that this conversation wasn’t going to end any time soon I reached to the bedside table and grabbed a cigarette.

“I notice that your not blogging lately,” God said, followed by a forced and unconvincing cough as I lit my smoke.

I rolled my eyes.  “Give me a break, God, you’re not even corporeal.”

“I know, but smoke still bothers me.  It’s a disgusting habit.”

“I know, I know,” I uttered.  “Can we just get to the point?”

“I want you to start blogging again.”

“Really?  You know I write an atheist blog, right?”

“And podcasting.  You need to get back on that.”

“But… I blog and podcast about the fact that you’re just a figment of the cultural imagination.  I blog about the logical incoherence of your existence.  I talk about the denialism of science and atrocious lapses in morality that are justified under your name.  I write about the sheer stupidity of holding bronze age beliefs in the modern-day.”

“Yeah, but the world needs more of that.”

“I agree, but I’m kind of surprised to hear you say it.”

“I want humans to be the best they can be, Noah.  I’m not going to get that if people are busy stifling discovery and retarding social progress.  I created disease and strife so that humans could come together against a common banner of necessity.  I put the obstacles there so that you could climb over them.  The idiots that believe in me are, forgive my language, fucking things all up.”

“You’re forgiven,” I said with a hint of irony.  “Do you realize how many atheist blogs are on the internet?  Do you really think that one more is going to make a difference?  Hell, nobody’s really reading it anyway.”

“I’m reading it,” God said reassuringly.

“Yeah, but you don’t show up on Google Analytics.”

“If you tweet it, they will come.”

“Are you stealing lines from Kevin Costner now?”

“I loved that movie.  I was awesome in it.  Not like Bruce Almighty…”

“So if I promise to start blogging again, will you let me go back to sleep?”

“And podcasting.”

“Fine.  I’ll get to it first thing in the morning… or afternoon probably.  I’ve got some errands to run in the morning.”

“Okay.  So what, Tuesday on the next episode?”

“Sure.  Tuesday’ll work.”

“Alright.  Night, Noah.”

“Night God,” I said, snubbing out my cigarette and curling back into my pillow.  Rudy made a brief nocturnal purr as I threw my arm around her and in an instant I was unconcious once more.