God has done a lousy job of raising his children.
God's a bad parent.
So, I have some advice for him.
Tip 1: your rules have to be consistent.
You can't just say: "Thout shalt not kill" and then go kill anyone you want.
You can't say: "Don't mix wool and linen" and say "You can't eat pork"
and then in the New Testament say: "Oh, you know all that stuff? I was just kidding."
You can't say it's easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God,
and then allow a show called "Preachers of L.A." with pastors who wear bling.
It totally undermines your authority when you start flip-flopping on all the rules.
Tip 2: kids need constant supervision.
You can't just leave us in a snake-infested garden. You can't say:
"Don't eat from that tree" and then disappear
and not expect us to eat from that tree.
You know how parents can go away for a weekend and then they come back home, and the whole house is trashed?
Well, God hasn't come back to check up on us in millennia.
Do you have any idea, God, how badly we've screwed this place up?
That's your fault.
Tip 3:
Don't kill your children.
I know, this should be a given, but you drown people for being evil.
You killed Herod because he didn't praise you.
All Lot's wife did is turn her head around and you turned her into a pillar of salt.
You killed 42 kids for mocking a bald guy. In fact, you sent bears to go maul them.
Yeah, that's in the Bible.
You really need to work on this one.
It's your job to raise us.
And you don't raise us by just killing us when you feel like it.
Tip four: you have to be fair.
You can't treat some children better than your other children.
You can't answer one kid's prayers and then leave the other kid high and dry.
You can't give your son's better opportunities and rewards than you do your daughter's.
They're gonna fight back.
And you know what? Good for them! They should.
You can't let straight kids get married, but then forbid gay ones from lying with one another.
You can't call Jewish people your chosen ones. How do you think that makes the rest of us feel?
And how can you bless America?
Canadians have it rough as it is.
This isn't Animal Farm. You can't say we're all equal, but some of us are more equal than others.
Tip 5:
If you want to get respect, you have to give respect.
You know, no parent deserves respect just for having a kid. We didn't choose to be born. It's not like we had a say in this.
So, you have to treat us with dignity.
Good parents understand that their kids may rebel at some point. They don't flip out every time it happens.
If you're right, we'll figure it out on our own. You can't put a muzzle and a leash on us,
and then act surprised when the second you take them off, we start to run away a little bit.
Tip 6:
Don't punish people just because of your own shortcomings.
Yeah, we sinned,
but it doesn't mean you have to give birth to another child and then kill it just to teach us a lesson.
That's just irresponsible.
Tip 7:
Don't just stand around when your kids are attacking each other.
Good parents mediate the fights between their children.
They don't just stand around while each kid
argues about which person Daddy loves more.
Tip number 8:
You can't punish children for an eternity.
If you didn't want the house to get messy, you shouldn't have had kids in the first place. But a temporary timeout is enough.
If you want to punish kids,
you send them to their rooms until dinnertime. That's enough time for us to reflect on what we've done.
You don't turn on the oven, and throw us in there, and then just leave us there forever to teach us a lesson.
That hurts our development.
I know, I know, you have a really rough job;
every parent does.
All I'm saying is that
Buddha next door seems to be very well disciplined, and his kids do all right.
Just saying.