Dear Father Who Art in Heaven



Apologies for writing this letter to you on the day of the Popes funeral but as youre omnipotent I thought you could probably still manage to show him around and read this at the same time. Regardless Ill try to keep this brief as I know youre very busy being utterly indifferent to the suffering of mankind:



What the fuck are you playing at?



Okay perhaps thats a little too brief. If youll avoid turning me into a pillar of salt or having a plague of locusts descend on my house for the next five minutes Ill explain my concerns in a little more detail. You may want to have a seat before continuing assuming for one second that someone who is both everywhere and nowhere at the same time is capable of sitting down.



Thats a point - if you made man in your own image how come Im not an unfeasibly large invisible giant too? Actually there are one or two questions I have regarding your existence and the contents of the Bible which Ill throw into this letter and which I hope you can answer should you take the time to reply. Thats not my main reason for writing however. Oh my goodness no.



Ill admit I havent been a regular church goer. In fact since leaving primary school Ive only ever set foot inside a church to shoot wedding videos and even this was solely motivated by profit. On the other hand however I dont think Ive lived my life in sin or at least in no more sin than the vast majority of your flock and in less than the majority of the Catholic church.



In fact to illustrate how scarcely I sin (other than low key everyday sins obviously because lets face it if I was to avoid all sin Id have to somehow force myself to slip into a coma) lets take a look at the Ten Commandments:



I. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

I dont. Im strictly 100% atheist and worship no gods of any description whatsoever. Ive dabbled in Buddhism but then Buddhism is not centred round the concept of there being one true god so I dont think it counts.



In fact when you think of it this commandment is pretty stupid. What other gods are there these days? I dont really expect theres a large following for Thor the God of Thunder any more at least not outside of Marvel Comics. If you ever get round to having the Bible updated (and if you do Im more than willing to help with the rewrite) I think you can safely drop this commandment.



Have I broken this commandment?: No.



II. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.

I dont even know what this means so I dont reckon Ive done it. Was this the thing about all the folk at the bottom of the mountain having made a cow out of gold and started worshipping it while Moses was up getting these commandments carved in stone? How bored do you have to be to decide to build a cow out of solid gold??



In fact if it only took you a week to create the Earth and everything in it how come it took you like a month to write the ten commandments? If it was writers block I can relate to that. Or did you come up with loads of other commandments that had to be whittled down to the final ten? "Though shalt not throw toads at a wall" and the like?



Whatever how pissed off were you when Moses smashed them to smithereens when he got to the bottom of the mountain? Way to go with the temper losing Moses. Man I bet he was sheepish when he came back up to ask for another copy.



Have I broken this commandment?: No.



III. Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain.

Okay Ive done this but Christ who hasnt? Ill give you this one though since Ive actually been pulled up for saying "for Gods sake" by an old woman in the past so there must be people out there who strictly adhere to it.



Have I broken this commandment?: Yes.



IV. Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy.

Im unsure on this one. I like to think Ive kept the sabbath day holy in a relaxed informal sense. A sitting about watching telly in my pants kind of sense. Do I go to church every Sunday? No I dont Ill give you that but then in order to keep the sabbath day holy in the way intended in the Bible no-one should be going to the shops or drinking alcohol or driving cars or anything and I dont believe theres more than a handful of people in the world who can say that.



Except maybe the Amish.



And no Im aware it doesnt mention anything about driving cars in the Bible but it does say youre supposed to walk everywhere on the sabbath so the driving cars bit is definitely inferred.



So on balance then I reckon Ive kept the sabbath just about as holy as everyone else has so assuming youre not going to have everyone but the Amish cast into the fiery pits of Hell for breaking this one Im going to assume it remains relatively unbroken by me.



Have I broken this commandment?: No (ish).



V. Honour thy father and thy mother.

Oh I do. They may get on my nerves from time to time but everyone gets on my nerves from time to time so its no reflection on them. Ill admit Im struggling to recall specific incidents of me honouring them but theres a vague kind of generic honouring going on most of the time.



Have I broken this commandment?: No.



VI. Thou shalt not kill.

Im definitely in the clear on this one! Even the police said that guy was just a tragic accident and that Id tried my best to grab him before he stepped in front of that train.



Have I broken this commandment?: No and I dare any fucker to say different.



VII. Thou shalt not commit adultery.

Hmm. Again this is a tricky one. Depends how you class adultery. If it has to involve relations of a physical nature then no I havent. If it also includes spending time with another woman on the sly while in a relationship with someone else then yes I have.



Ill put me down as a "dont know".



Have I broken this commandment?: Maybe.



VIII. Thou shalt not steal.

Once when I was about seven I absent-mindedly walked out of a shop without paying for the newspapers I had been sent to buy for my parents (see how I honour them?) but I realised about half way home and went back in to pay for them. Does that count? If so I reckon youre being a little bit harsh.



Im going to assume because I didnt actually steal anything for more than a few minutes that Im in the clear.



Have I broken this commandment?: No.



IX. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

I once told a story about a neighbour who is a pub singer falling off his stool while performing but "magically" continuing to sing uninterrupted due to him having been miming his way through his entire repertoire but to the best of my knowledge thats true so it doesnt count as false witness.



Have I broken this commandment?: No.



X. Thou shalt not covet any thing that is thy neighbours.

When I was a student the guy in the flat above had an eighteen year old daughter who would come to visit who I found very attractive. I wouldnt say I "coveted" her as such more just quite liked the idea of seeing her naked. Never did though. Shame.



Have I broken this commandment?: No.



So there you have it. Of the ten commandments Ive broken one been a bit iffy on two and adhered to the rest. I havent been a bad person all things considered.



So whats with the grudge you appear to have against me? Why have you singled me out for special treatment? Dont try to deny it the facts speak for themselves. Im not going to go into great detail on all the things youve inflicted upon me over the years because you know them all too well. In fact I wouldnt be at all surprised if you have a spreadsheet of them printed out and pinned to your office wall just below an A3 sized artists impression of my crying face.



It may strike you as odd that I a self-confessed atheist am writing to you to question your motives but the answer is very simple. Either I accept that you do exist and that for reasons unknown you fucking hate me or I assume all blame for everything that has gone wrong in my life and actively do something to improve the situation. Though it has taken a radical shift in my thinking Ive decided to go for the former simply because I dont fancy facing up to the crushing realisation that I am the captain of my own destiny and that the majority of my woes have been caused solely by my own actions.



Take for example the old penis in the zip incident back when I was sixteen. You remember that one dont you God? Granted it was me and not you who caught the old chap in the fly of my Levis but Im not the first to do it and Im reasonably confident I wont be the last.



How many others however awoke next morning to find themselves literally pissing blood all over their sheets? How many others had to face the indignation of walking through a crowded doctor~~apost