God in the News, Chapter 1

You know, sometimes I get tired of all the controversial topics in today's world. So I admit I was pretty relieved when I finally stumbled across some news articles regarding a much lighter subject matter that at least everyone is comfortable talking about: Religion!

In the city of Lincoln, NE one would expect nothing less than good, hard rational thinking especially from its state government. So it should come as little surprise when last July during a sexual assault trial in Lancaster County, NE, Judge Jeffre Cheuvront barred the rape victim from using such words as "rape" and "victim". Apparently the word "guilty" also seemed to be barred though, but thankfully "mistrial" was very much available as the accused was set free because Cheuvront decided that it was impossible to find an impartial jury due to a large amount of pretrial publicity. Ahhhhh, justice is served!!

But for some reason Nebraska State Senator Ernie Chambers was upset by that ruling. So in response he filed a new lawsuit of his own....Against God. Seriously. Can I get a Halleluiah!? Yeah, finally we can get some retribution from the Almighty. According to the MSNBC article "Nebraska state senator sues God" Chambers' lawsuit accuses God of "causing untold death and horror and threatening to cause more still."

Chambers says in his lawsuit that God has made terrorist threats against the senator and his constituents, inspired fear and caused “widespread death, destruction and terrorization of millions upon millions of the Earth’s inhabitants." [He also says God has caused] "fearsome floods...horrendous hurricanes [and] terrifying tornadoes.”

Note: I find it strange that Chambers didn't also mention that God caused all my gambling losses in Las Vegas - not to mention the untold number of Grammy nominees He caused to lose, seeing that the winners always seem to thank Him. Those issues aside, the best part about the whole lawsuit is the State Senator's pure rationale about being able to sue God in Douglas County, NE. The reason: "because He's everywhere!"

Surprisingly, I do foresee a few minor problems with this lawsuit though:

A) I suppose the hardest part is going to be serving God with the papers. In order to serve God (so to speak) I'm assuming that the documents can either be placed in the church collection basket on Sunday (along with $5) or else shipped via UPS, simply addressed to "The Almighty - 1 North Pearly Gates - Heaven." Ahhh, UPS doesn't deliver packages to addresses not located on Earth, you say? You could always try addressing the papers to "Burning Bush - Mt. Sinai" and hope that God left a forwarding address after having briefly resided there with roommate Moses. All I know is that if Santa Claus can receive letters addressed to "The North Pole" then I certainly have faith in our overnight small package companies to safely deliver court papers to God.

B) Speaking of serving God with papers, another toughie might be figuring out exactly which God Chambers is suing. Is it the Jewish God? Or the Christian's God? Or is it Islam's God of Abraham? Or even... I'm sorry, what? Those are all the same God? How confusing is that?! If they're all the same God, then why do we have so many problems in the world? I swear, the Holy Spirit must have the toughest job ever being secretary for those 3... or 1... whatever. I mean, isn't there a way to tell which God is the real one? I was worried about this until I luckily found an article on the website CatholicNews.com titled “Vatican Congregation Reaffirms Truth, Oneness of Catholic Church.” Here is a small excerpt:

In a brief document, the Vatican's doctrinal congregation reaffirmed that the Catholic Church is the one, true church, even if elements of truth can be found in separated churches and communities.

Touching an ecumenical sore point, the document said some of the separated Christian communities, such as Protestant communities, should not properly be called "churches" according to Catholic doctrine because of major differences over the ordained priesthood and the Eucharist.

The Vatican released the text July 10 [2007]. Titled "Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church," it was signed by U.S. Cardinal William J. Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and approved by Pope Benedict XVI before publication.

In a cover letter, Cardinal Levada asked the world's bishops to do all they can to promote and present the document to the wider public.

Whew! I'm glad that once and for all we got that cleared up. Simply put, all of the world's religions that aren't Roman Catholic obviously disagree with what the Pope believes - whether in part or in whole - so naturally they are all wrong and not true churches. And this comes from a very credible and unbiased source - the Pope - so we know it's true. Maybe we can send those Nebraska court papers directly to the Vatican and let the Pope just pass them on to God? It might be quicker than using the U.S. Post Office or UPS Ground.

C) Let's skip ahead to after God gets served the papers. Now we have to find twelve people to sit as a jury of His peers. I'm not positive that we can limit ourselves to Douglas County, NE for this part, and that's not a knock. Or maybe it is. Either way, since God isn't overtly letting us know who His peers are we can only make educated guesses.

Right off the bat one can assume that the Pope (1) would serve as lead juror. And of course George W. Bush (2) would be there. Jerry Falwell would have been perfect but he's already (and undoubtedly) in Heaven. But surely Pat Robertson (3) of The 700 Club could represent instead. And if speaking loudly on tv and/or radio proclaiming to always be right and on the side of God, then certainly we can't leave off the likes of Lou Dobbs, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Rush Limbaugh and Pat Buchanan (4-9).

Now, I would love to suggest Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin and Laura Ingraham as possible jurors, but since they're women and therefore not even allowed to become priests in the Catholic church, I highly doubt that they can be perceived as God's peers, am I right? But maybe we can have all 3 of them serve, counting each of their opinions as 1/3? It's not as if the USA doesn't have a history of considering certain people as being less than a whole person so it's not unprecedented. Ok, cool. Coulter, Malkin & Ingraham comprise a single juror (10).

And we can't leave off Ted Haggard can we? Former pastor and leader of the National Association of Evangelicals. I mean, he was probably framed and innocent when accused of repeatedly having sex with a male prostitute and buying crystal meth. ...Wait, he confessed to buying the crystal meth? Oh. Wellllll, he said that he bought it for himself but never used it, right? Phew! That was close. For a second there I thought he might have used it. But he was merely tempted. Good, because that's not a crime. Don't forget Jesus was tempted, too. I'm glad Haggard at least cleared all doubts when denying to ever having met the male prostitute who accused him of all of this.... Ok, yes, he later admitted to not only having met the prostitute, but actually knowing him personally and also buying the meth from him. But at least he didn't deny knowing him 3 times like Peter did Jesus.... And Peter now holds the keychain to Heaven and its mailbox - literally!! (Who do you think is signing for God's court papers?) As for the sex with a male prostitute thing? Naaaaah. I don't buy it. Now granted, after denying it, Haggard later said, "The fact is I am guilty of sexual immorality," but at least he followed that up by doing the right thing:

After the scandal was publicized, Haggard entered three weeks of intensive counseling, overseen by four ministers. On February 6th, 2007 one of those ministers, Tim Ralph, stated that Haggard "is completely heterosexual."

Ralph later said he meant to say that therapy "gave Ted the tools to help to embrace his heterosexual side."

So, he's got the tools. Simple enough. Ted Haggard (11) is a juror. And if simply denying that you're gay is a positive thing, then obviously Idaho Senator Larry Craig (see a few articles below in this blog) should be given consideration to serve on the jury of God's peers as well. After all, when deciding to resign from the U.S. Senate (even though he's now re-thinking that decision) he said, "I am not gay. I never have been gay." Thank you. That makes Larry Craig (12) a juror as well.

Wow, that wasn't as tough as I thought it would be. In fact it seems God's peers are nearly everywhere.

D) But just because you have the courtroom setup and ready for trial with a 12-person jury of God's peers, doesn't mean there isn't another hurdle to overcome in this trial: God has to show up!! Yeah, the Creator got served. But if President Bush can invoke executive privilege (thereby preventing White House aides Harriet Miers and Sara Taylor from testifying before Congress into their roles of the possible unethical and illegal firings of U.S. attorneys for political purposes), then don't you think God would be able to claim some kind of Universal Almighty Privilege as well? And who is going to enforce the subpoena placed upon Him? Alberto Gonzales? Douuuuubtfulllllll.

Doesn't Nebraska State Senator Ernie Chambers realize that God is probably just going to ignore His court date? I mean, doesn't His Universal Almighty Privilege give God the right to arbitrarily "inspire fear and cause widespread death and destruction"? He's been doing it forever hasn't He? At least since the 10 plagues of Egypt were brought down upon the Egyptians in order to free the Moses (former roommate) led Hebrew slaves. And as for causing fearsome floods, horrendous hurricanes and terrifying tornadoes....alliteration aside these are nothing! Compared to the Angel of Death those pesky natural disasters seem more in line with sitting in a bowl of milk with the pink hearts, yellow moons, orange stars, green clovers and blue diamonds of Lucky Charms. Just ask the people of New Orleans after Hurricane Kattrina. I'm sure they'll agree that God has the right to do all of those things. Although, in retrospect, God probably should have reinforced those levees over the years, ya think?

So maybe God should be put on trial then, huh? It couldn't be worse than when George Burns did it in "Oh, God!"