Satan Weighs in on Terror

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored." If you're just joining us, this site is dedicated to all the gods and goddesses who have been let go in "revised head counts" since the so-called "modern era" got underway.

My contract is secure, unfortunately. I signed on for 10,000 years with one of the gods who isn't bored. That's my boss, The Big Guy.

Yes folks, I'm back! Anne turns her back, goes off goat-judging, and I sneak into her space. You can call me Satan if you must (hate it), or Lucifer (hate it), or Mephistopheles (can't spell it), or Beelzebub (he's a bored god, and he hates to see his name abused). Myself, I prefer Mr. Applegate. It's so user-friendly.

If you haven't seen my previous posts, here's my resume in a nutshell. I was working freelance in a galaxy far, far away, and my entire praise and worship population got killed when an asteroid hit their planet. They only needed one god to run their heaven, so I had to hit the road. I was desperate for work (as most freelancers are) when I heard about this post. The fact that it was full-time with bennies appealed. But I should have read the fine print on the contract and taken a better look at the species I'd be godding for. One week into the gig, I'm sent to head the satellite office, and my name is mud.

If you've worked corporate, you know how it is. If something goes right, The Big Guy gets all the credit. If something goes wrong, It's all my fault.

Case in point: Have you ever seen a football player score a huge touchdown, kneel reverently and point toward Hell? I get no respect.

Today I want to tell you why I'm sorry I'm stuck here for another 3,995 years.

To put it bluntly, I arrived about 5 million years too soon. Your species (you human beings, I mean) has not sufficiently evolved. Worse, I think the general universal consensus is that you have a 90 percent chance of destroying yourselves and your beautiful planet before you do evolve sufficiently.

"War of the Worlds?" Give me a break. Every species that is intelligent enough to come and study you quickly puts a big XXXXXXXXX through your name on the Official List of Planets and Intelligent Beings Worth Getting to Know (LPIBWGK). And off they go, shaking their heads and saying, "Oh well, decent planet, bloody horrible intelligent species."

On the last planet where I worked, there were four, yes four intelligent species all living together in harmony. Here's your earthly analogy. You and your closest friends are out power-boating, and all of a sudden a dolphin rears up out of the water and says, "Excuse me, I hope you don't mind, but you're polluting my daughter's baby shower." And just like that, you cut your engine and drift slowly back to shore.

That was my old posting. Everyone was so polite.

The first rule of inter-galactic communication is this: No species is deemed worthy of contact if it kills its own kind.

Human race? XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Your primitive primate brains are big on inventing things and small on evolving rational uses for your technology. And there's nothing more pathetic than an intelligent species with deadly weapons of mass destruction and a "Them vs. Us" brain stem.

But what really puts you at the bottom of the LPIBGWK is that so much of what you do is "religiously motivated." Who do you think you're fooling with that one? No one, not even The Big Guy's second-in-command, was ever killed from religious motives. It's all politics. All of it. Always has been, at least since I signed on.

One group says: "America is the Great Satan." And goes off to kill.

Another group says: "God Bless America." And goes off to kill.

And you think the rest of the universe finds that intelligent?

Human race, as I see it, you have a long way to go and not enough patience to get there. Bad combination.

See (almost) all of you soon,
MR. APPLEGATE