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perfect understanding of human illness. With regard to leprosy, God advised Moses that the best treatment was to kill a bird and sprinkle its blood on the leper. (Lev. 14:5–7) As Moses wrote this down, God nodded to himself and murmured, “Right on the money, Lord.”
    God tried to get back to food—but his mind started to feel contaminated now. So
many
of the things he’d created wereunclean: shrimp, mice, bat-birds (“stop!”), menstruating women, lepers. Yes, he’d made some things that were clean, like locusts and catfish and goats—but still—even the things that were clean so often had blemishes. God hated blemishes. He wanted perfection. “I am perfect and I created this world, so
it
should be perfect too!” he reasoned with impeccable logic. “Why should I have to tolerate so many blemishes?” he demanded. And not just any kind of blemish either; many of the flaws were in the worst place they could possibly be: The balls. (Lev. 22:24)
    God loved perfect balls. Perfect, hanging, unblemished balls. But they were so very rare. (“Especially in combination with a perfect, cut penis,” he murmured to himself.) There were goats that were perfect except for their balls, which were bruised, torn, cut, whatever. These goats were of
zero
interest to God. “I only want the ones with perfect balls!” he would demand. “I also only want to be served by men with perfect balls!” (Lev. 21:20)
    By the time he was done laying down the law, God felt confident. He had made it clear what he expected of his people, what was clean, what was unclean, the importance of perfect balls, all of it.
    â€œThings should fall into place nicely now,” he thought.

Chapter Twelve
    But it was strange.
    Problems continued—bad ones: (1) Sin was back. God had tried so hard to wipe it out, drowning everyone on earth, incinerating two cities. But for some reason it was rampant once again. His people were having sex with animals now, for instance. (Lev. 18:23) And perhaps one of the reasons for
that
was (2) God’s people, his chosen ones, were starting to drift toward other gods. (Lev. 20:2) God hated all these made-up gods, but the one who he truly despised was Baal, the so-called sex god. People loved Baal; he was seductive, even to God’s own people. (Num. 25:1–3) Baal didn’t exist, obviously, “But if he did, I would definitely kill him,” God muttered to himself. (Much later, when God discovered that Baal actually
did
exist, he would kill him, along with all the other,
not
-made-up-as-it-turned-out gods. The moment when God shoved his knife into Baal’s gut and felt his life flow out was very rewarding.) (Isa. 26:13–14)
    â€œWhy am I so bothered by a fictional character?” God would sometimes wonder. “I’m God, why should I be threatened by someone that doesn’t even exist? I shouldn’t be … and you know what, I’m not.” God would then sit in tense silence for awhile, fretting about this. There were moments when he couldn’t help but wonder: “Why did I create a reality that makes me so damned angry?” He was mad all the time, it seemed. Hispeople infuriated him—they didn’t listen, they didn’t obey, they did wicked, evil things and worst of all, they worshipped that asshole, Baal.
    On top of all that, bizarre things were happening. Ghosts, for instance. God didn’t like ghosts—he didn’t like anything about them. He had created them, obviously—but now he’d forgotten why. “It must have seemed like a good idea at the time,” he reflected, “to have dead people continue to wander the earth as semitransparent, floating entities.” It must have been designed as some kind of punishment, God decided (what
wasn’t?),
but it hadn’t worked out the way he’d wanted. He didn’t want humans and ghosts to interact with each