Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology

  and Adam and Eve are like “Okay, whatever dude”

  (Eve is the name of the chick God made, by the way)

  and they go off somewhere to bone.

  But there is a SERPENT in this garden.

  I think he is supposed to be Satan

  but really I think he’s just a serpent who happens to be a big jerk.

  This serpent runs up on Eve when she is off on her own

  and he is like “Hey, gurl, try one of these apples.”

  And Eve is like “YOU MEAN THE APPLES OF KNOWLEDGE?

  THE ONES THAT GOD EXPLICITLY FORBID US FROM EATING??

  NOOOO WAY.”

  And the serpent is like “No, come on.”

  And Eve is like “Okay.”

  So she eats the apple

  and it is DELICIOUS

  and so she takes the rest of it to Adam, all like “Here, eat this.”

  And Adam is like “What? No, God said if we ate that then we would die or something.”

  And Eve is like “Uhhh . . . totally still alive over here.”

  And Adam is like “Okay, fair point.”

  So he eats the apple

  and suddenly both of them realize HOW INCREDIBLY NAKED THEY ARE.

  THIS IS WHAT THE TREE DOES

  IT LETS YOU KNOW YOU’RE NAKED

  THE MYTHICAL TREE OF KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL

  COULD HAVE EASILY BEEN REPLACED

  BY A FIVE-DOLLAR MIRROR FROM A COLOMBIAN BROTHEL.

  So they make themselves some clothes, ’cause they’re embarrassed

  and then God wakes up from one of his meganaps

  and he’s like “HEY

  WHO THE FUCK TOLD YOU YOU WERE NAKED?”

  See, this was his big plan.

  His big plan was just to look at naked people all day.

  Now the plan is ruined so he responds in the rational way

  which is to put curses on everybody and then kick them out of his garden.

  He curses the serpent to have to crawl on its belly forever

  apparently forgetting that that is what SERPENTS DO ALL THE TIME

  and he curses Eve to undergo tremendous pain during childbirth

  because apparently he is able to imagine some crazy parallel universe

  where pushing something the size of a screaming football out of your vag

  is somehow NOT INCREDIBLY PAINFUL

  and then he curses Adam to toil endlessly

  and Adam is like “Come on!

  Couldn’t you just curse me to like . . .

  have testicles or something?”

  But by then he is already kicked out of Eden

  and there is a big flaming sword guarding the door

  and there is nothing left to do

  but have a bunch of kids and try to forget the whole fiasco.

  So the moral of the story

  is to never be naked

  because God is a creepy pervert who invented you so he could look at your junk.

  CAIN AND ABEL INVENT THE SIBLING RIVALRY

  So Adam and Eve know each other.

  Oh wait

  I read that wrong.

  Adam and Eve totally have SEX with each other.

  It’s just that the Bible is cagey about shit like that

  so instead of writing “Adam boned Eve in a moist, raunchy sex fiasco.”

  the Bible guys would put “Adam KNEW Eve in a moist, raunchy sex fiasco.”

  It’s awesome once you know about it

  and now you do.

  BUT SO ANYWAY

  Adam and Eve bang the daylights out of each other

  and they have two kids: Cain and Abel

  and these dudes are farmers

  because what else are they gonna do?

  No one has built any of the cool stuff yet.

  So Abel becomes a sheep farmer

  and Cain becomes a vegetables farmer.

  Then harvest time comes

  (I am guessing that harvest time for sheep is whenever they start to piss you off)

  and Abel makes an offering to the LORD

  (always in all caps, by the way)

  of like, the fattest sheep he owns.

  Dude, he could have totally eaten that.

  MEANWHILE

  Cain makes an offering

  of all his choicest vegetables

  and God gets all of these things

  and he is like “OH SNAP

  DELICIOUS LAMB MEAT

  THAT I HAVE NO USE FOR BECAUSE I AM IMMORTAL AND OMNIPOTENT AND STUFF.

  GOOD JOB, ABEL.

  BUT WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT, CAIN?

  VEGETABLES?

  IF I WANTED TO EAT VEGETABLES

  WHY DO YOU THINK I INVENTED MEAT HUH?

  YOU’RE NOT MY DAD, CAIN.

  YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT’S BEST FOR ME.”

  So Cain goes and hits up Abel later.

  He’s like “Yo, bro

  God really dug your offering, huh?”

  and Abel is like “Yeah, well, it was pretty sweet.”

  And Cain is like “Yeah . . . yeah . . .

  Hey listen, I actually dug something of yours as well.”

  And Abel is like “Oh yeah, what is it?”

  And Cain is like “YOUR GRAVE, MOTHERFUCKER!”

  Then he stabs him and puts him underground

  thus SINGLE-HANDEDLY INVENTING MURDER.

  Yeah

  before this, murder didn’t even exist.

  Cain is seriously like the Thomas Edison of stabbing people.

  So pretty soon God comes poking around

  like “HEY, ABEL

  ME AND THE HOLY GHOST ARE HAVING A BARBECUE.

  GOT ANY MORE OF THAT DELICIOUS LAMB MEAT?”

  And then he sees Cain and he’s like “OH HEY, DIPSHIT

  NO, I DON”T WANT ANY VEGETABLES

  THERE IS NOT GOING TO BE A ‘VEGAN OPTION’ AT THIS BARBECUE.

  HEY, HAVE YOU SEEN YOUR BROTHER ANYWHERE?”

  And Cain is like “What? Noooo.

  What am I, my brother’s babysitter or some shit?

  Find him yourself.”

  And God is like “Oh hold on, I’m getting a phone call.

  Hello?

  Oh hi, Abel’s blood.

  What’s that?

  Cain murdered you and hid you underground

  foolishly believing that six feet of dirt would obscure you from THE OMNISCIENT CREATOR?!

  YOU DON’T SAY.

  CAIN, YOU ARE SO GETTING PUNISHED.”

  So he curses Cain so that the earth will refuse to get farmed by him

  and he has to roam forever and everyone will hate him

  and Cain is like “But, Godddd

  now everyone I meet is just gonna kill me.”

  And God is like “Oh, good point.

  How about I make a law that says no one can kill you

  and I put a mark on you to let everyone know that you are a dude not to kill?”

  And Cain is like “Uh . . . yes.”

  At this stage of the Bible, God is not very good at coming up with punishments.

  Don’t worry, he gets way better.

  But yeah, then Cain goes off to live in the land of Nod

  and everyone is either unhappy or dead or omnipotent.

  So the moral of the story

  is that God hates vegetarians.

  ABRAHAM IS TOTALLY COOL ABOUT STABBING HIS KID IN THE FACE

  Seriously?

  SERIOUSLY?

  Okay, here we go:

  So one day this guy named Abraham is out working in the fields

  and God is like ?
??Abraham! Abraham! Hey!”

  Abraham is like “Chill out, I’m right here. What do you want?”

  And God is like “You know your son?”

  And Abraham is like “My only son? Yeah, you could say I know him.”

  And God is like “Okay, here’s what I want you to do:

  I want you to take your son

  up to a mountain that I’m gonna show you

  and I want you to kill him and set him on fire for me.”

  And Abraham is like “Okay, well I guess you know what you’re doing.”

  So Abraham goes and gets his son

  and he’s like “Come on, son, let’s go on a nice father-son trip to a mountain that God will show us.

  We are going to make a blood sacrifice it will be a great bonding experience.”

  So they start going to the mountain

  along with some donkeys, and some slaves which God is apparently cool with

  and Abraham makes his son carry the wood

  and he carries the fire and the knife

  and halfway there, his son is like

  “Uhh, Dad?”

  And Abraham is like “What?”

  And his son is like “Dad where is the lamb we’re gonna sacrifice?”

  And Abraham is like “Uh . . . well . . . God is going to provide a lamb for us, son.”

  HE IS REMARKABLY CALM ABOUT THIS WHOLE THING.

  PERHAPS FOR ABRAHAM

  ONE SON IS TOO MANY SONS.

  So anyway, they get to the mountain

  and Abraham straps his son down

  and his son doesn’t say anything

  presumably because the level of shitty parenting going on here has rendered him speechless

  and Abraham raises up the knife

  and God is like “WHOA, WHOA, ABRAHAM!!!!”

  and Abraham is like “WHAT?!

  I’m kind of in the middle of something right now.”

  And God is like “Haha, PSYCH!

  I was totally just kidding about the whole sacrificing your son thing.

  But, dude, that was HARD-CORE.

  Tell you what, man

  I like a man with big balls

  so how about I make it so that your children WILL OUTNUMBER THE STARS IN THE SKY.”

  And Abraham is like “WHAT

  THAT IS TOO MANY KIDS.”

  and God is like “Haha, no need to thank me, buddy.

  Your thoughtless attempted sacrifice of your own son is all the thanks I need.”

  And then Abraham finds a ram

  which he sacrifices to God instead of his son

  and then I guess the two of them go home

  or actually, they go to a place called Beersheba

  which is clearly the party city of ancient times

  and I like to imagine that they partied so hard

  that afterward they had to go to Bathsheba just to wash the stank off

  and things are pretty awkward between Abraham and his son from then on

  but it’s okay, because Abraham has a ton more kids.

  So the moral of the story

  is that it’s never a bad idea

  to try to set your kids on fire

  as long as the voices tell you so.

  NOAH IS ON A BOAT

  So God makes a bunch of people

  they fuck up and kill each other

  but then they feel bad about it

  so they have, like, CRAZY makeup sex

  and the next NINE THOUSAND PAGES OF THE BIBLE

  (depending on how big you make the text)

  are about all the babies people made

  because the Bible predates condoms

  and I think we should all remember this.

  So everyone has a bunch of kids

  but it doesn’t matter

  because apparently they all suck

  and God decides he’s had enough of this shit.

  He’s just gonna kill everybody

  kinda like that other god in that Mayan myth.

  See what I mean about how all this junk starts to run together after a while?

  And he totally rips off Quetzalcoatl even harder

  because his method of choice for killing everyone

  is a GIANT FLOOD

  (P.S.:

  Did you know that whenever H. P. Lovecraft uses the word “antediluvian”

  what he means is “predating the biblical flood?”

  Because yeah

  apparently H. P. Lovecraft knows EXACTLY WHEN THIS HAPPENED.)

  But God can’t just kill EVERYONE

  because he put a lot of work into this whole humanity thing

  so he picks the least sucky dude in the world

  whose name is Noah

  and he’s like “YO, NOAH!

  EVERYBODY’S GOING TO DIE, EXCEPT YOU

  CONGRATULATIONS.

  HOPE YOU DON’T HAVE ANY FRIENDS.

  GONNA NEED YOU TO BUILD A REAL BIG BOAT, BUDDY

  BUT NO FRIENDS ALLOWED ON THIS BOAT

  JUST ANIMALS

  SEVEN PAIRS OF EVERY KID OF ANIMAL

  (unless they are really filthy in which case you can just get one pair)

  ’CAUSE YEAH, I SPENT A LOT OF TIME ON THOSE ANIMALS

  BUT I FORGOT TO MAKE THEM SMART ENOUGH TO BUILD BOATS

  SO THAT IS YOUR JOB NOW.”

  So this sounds like a lot of work to Noah

  but hey, it’s better than dying

  so he gets some lumber and he gets to work

  and somehow he manages to pull it off in time

  with all his neighbors showing up at his house and calling him an idiot all day.

  Well, joke’s on them.

  They all die.

  But then, joke’s on Noah

  because now he has to live on a boat full of nothing but animals and his wife.

  Nobody wins except for God

  who is playing a game called “Do Whatever the Hell I Want Because I’m God”

  So anyway, the whole world stays flooded for FORTY DAYS

  which is actually just Bible speak for AN ARBITRARILY LONG TIME

  but Noah is patient

  because, oh yeah, I forgot to tell you:

  NOAH IS SIX HUNDRED YEARS OLD.

  Okay, now I’m super impressed.

  This six-hundred-year-old dude managed to build a massive boat in just a couple months

  AND

  MORE IMPRESSIVELY

  he managed to live six hundred years on Earth without committing ANY MORTAL SINS.

  So anyway, the rain stops eventually

  and Noah’s family and all the animals are getting pretty antsy

  no pun intended

  because only some of them are actually ants

  but anyway, Noah’s solution is to send birds out to find land.

  First he tries sending out a raven

  but that’s useless.

  The raven pretty much just flies back and forth a lot.

  So Noah sends out a dove

  and the dove fails to find land

  so Noah KEEPS sending it out

  until on the third try it finally brings back an olive branch

  indicating that it found a tree somewhere

  and this somehow became an international symbol for peace

  when what it SHOULD symbolize is “HOORAY WE ARE NO LONGER COVERED IN WATER.”

  So yeah, after that everything is pretty straightforward.

  They find some land

  and Noah makes an altar

  and God makes a rainbow

  which is his way of saying “Sorry, dudes won’t happen again.”


  And he has kept that promise

  SO FAR.

  So the moral of the story

  is that if you are planning on being a terrible person your whole life

  you can just keep a big boat in your garage and you’ll be totally safe.

  KING SOLOMON AND THE DISPOSABLE BABY

  So there’s this king named Solomon.

  It doesn’t really matter what he’s king of.

  You know how it was in Bible times.

  Kings all over the place.

  But the thing about Solomon

  is that unlike most of the kings who were all over the place in Bible times

  Solomon is INCREDIBLY WISE.

  Observe:

  So one of the things a king used to have to do

  was to sit in a room while people shouted their problems at him

  and then solve the problems using his king powers.

  So one day, Solomon is doing this

  and two ladies walk in with a dead baby, a live baby and a SERIOUS DOOZY OF A PROBLEM.

  One woman is like “Hey, Solomon I gave birth to this healthy baby five days ago

  but then my bitch of a roommate gave birth to a DEAD baby two days later

  and she thought it would be a good idea

  to pull some Indiana Jones shit

  and switch my live baby for her dead one.

  Make her give me my baby back.”

  And the other woman is like “Nuh-uh! This is totally my baby

  your baby DIED because you are a terrible parent.”

  So Solomon is like “Hmm, this is a tough one.

  Oh wait, no, it’s not. I have swords.

  Hey, guards

  cut the baby in half give a piece to each of these ladies.

  PROBLEM SOLVED.”

  And the first lady is like “Jesus Christ just give her the baby.

  What is wrong with you?”

  And the second woman is like “DIBS ON THE TOP HALF.”

  And Solomon is like “Ah-HAH!

  The baby must belong to the first lady

  because mothering instincts generally prevent people from agreeing to bisect their babies

  and even if the first lady ISN’T the mother

  the baby should still probably go to the woman who is NOT WILLING TO CUT IT WITH SWORDS.

  Seriously, lady

  what were you even planning on doing with the top half of a baby?

  You’ve already got 100 percent of a dead baby no questions asked.

  What are you, making a casserole?

  Case dismissed.”

  So the moral of the story