By Bob A

Choosing a god is a very important and difficult task as there are so many to choose from. Picking the wrong god could result in eternal damnation and fire. Can you take that chance? I thought not... Let's get started...

1. Assemble a complete list of all the gods ever worshipped. Many of these are well documented, so the task shouldn't be too difficult. Google GOD. I'd estimate somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000 gods, not counting all those minor ones. This should be easily achieved in a few days or weeks. If any of those pesky JW's knock on the door, just ignore them. Ask the boss for some time off , if necessary, and tell him what you're doing. I'm sure he/she will understand.

2: List all the attributes associated with these gods. Some are maniacal punishing thugs, gods of hate, fire and all manor of brutality and damnation, eliminate these types, we'll just stick with loving and rewarding gods. This may be somewhat more difficult than step one, but remember, the reward will be worth it. Don't be influenced by the god your parents chose, they could be wrong, too. Lets keep it fair and honest. It may be necessary to hire a few unemployed scribes to help for a few months, but what the hell, er heck.

3. Having once assembled all the good gods, the list may still be unmanageably long, so eliminate those whose names you cannot pronounce or spellings that seem weird and unreasonable. A real god should be easy to pronounce. I'm suspicious of gods whose heads and bodies are from differing species too, but who knows? This should bring the list to a few hundred or perhaps a thousand.

4. To be fair, put the list in alphabetical order.(This will put Athena towards the top, she's my favorite, anyway).

5. Pray to the first god for 10 minutes, If he/she's listening this should be enough time and then wait for 24 hours. If nothing good happens, move on to the next god and repeat the process. In a year or two, you should have narrowed the field to a mere handful at which time you again repeat the process keeping only those deities who seemed to show promise. The real god should show repeatability. Scratch all the others. By now you should have determined which god to keep and which to eliminate. I'm confident the real god will appreciate all your effort and determination, at least, he should. Having successfully determined the real god, ask him for the winning lotto numbers just to make life a little easier.

If none of this seems to work, you can give up and become a heathen atheist, at least forgoing all that guilt and fear and with the 10% tithing money you save, you can buy a good book or one of those new electronic gadgets. I assume all the gods have the same 10% service charge..?

By the way, if you think this seems silly, perhaps you'd do well to step back and review your god. Can any god look less silly than any other god? I think not.

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