Gods & Dice

     They say that Gods do not play at dice. While the literal translation might be true, the rest of it is rather misleading, for while gods do not dice, they have a strong temptation toward gambling. I’m sure that they would turn to dicing as well, but their hands are far too big, and if they had managed to create a set of dice large enough, the result would undoubtedly be catastrophic and destructive. Why are the gambling habits of deities so relevant? Well as it happens, most of the time they aren’t. Usually gods make small wagers, examining how far human faith can go (killing all of a man’s children for sport) but occasionally things get out of hand.

     For this story I will not give the names of the gods, as religious zealots tend to get all hot and bothered about it. Whenever something of great power is named, people just stop listening. It is my intention to tell the story as it happened, and not be hunted by priests afterward. I said previously that the gambling of deities can occasionally get out of hand (more than occasionally). Evidence of this is present throughout history. A fine example is the ultimate tragedy of the dinosaurs.

     By all rights, dinosaurs should have lived on to rule the earth for millions of years, and if my guess is correct, it would have been a triumphant rule. You see, lizard brains are small and peculiar, but generally don’t have the thought capability for mass destruction. Humans on the other hand are quite rowdy, and take offense at the most absurd things. This leads to wars, genocide, and newscasters shouting bigotry at a teleprompter. It is not so with giant lizards, but I digress.

     Rather than having a wonderful era of massive, idiotic lizards, munching absentmindedly on grass, and occasionally killing each other for sustenance, the earth was instead subjected to a mass extinction. How did such a catastrophe come to be? It began in what I refer to as the ‘Break Room’. This is where all of the different religious deities congregate to boast about their followers and throw raucous parties.

     One god in particular, I’m just going to call him Steve, had dipped a little too deeply into the cooler. Before you go and get the idea that gods can’t drink alcohol, I want you take a look at the ancient writings of the Greeks. They may have been wrong about a great many things (see modern day Greece), but the gods are a bunch of drunkards when they get together. Frankly, there’s just not much to do when you’re immortal and omnipotent. It gets stale.

     Steve walked into the breakroom, swaggering back and forth like a sea captain and proclaimed that the dinosaurs were all a pile of rubbish. “All they are is giant lizards. I mean what’s the big deal anyway? I could eat grass if I wanted to! And I’m pretty tall!” His words sloshed out like a bucket of chum, but managed to stir a round of giggling from the other gods and goddesses in the room. However, one in particular was not so happy.

     Tiberius was the creator of the dinosaurs, and not really great at parties. He stood tall and proud, with far too many muscles to possess a sense of humor. It’s a miracle that he came up with dinosaurs in the first place, but we let him have his day in the sun. He was fiercely protective of his creations, and did not take criticism well. “Your insolence knows no bounds Steve. My creatures have dominated the earth for millions of years with no one to contest their reign.” Like I said, he didn’t take criticism well, and did not realize that arguing with a drunken god was a bit like arguing with a brick wall… that also possessed the powers of creation in addition to being thick.

     “I could create a better life-form in ten minutes.” Steve swallowed vomit and made a proud stance in the way that only terminal drunks can. He wore tattered robes and a stupid, drunk grin, punctuated by abnormally large teeth. He wasn’t a good looking deity, but we all liked him, because he always brought booze, and liked to play Parcheesi.

     “Psh.” The room fell silent. This may seem odd, but the gods are really rather terrible at insults, so an exasperated sigh is really the best they can dish out. “If you’re so confident, then do it.”

     “Alright, I will!”

     A persnickety deity with large goggles on his face scampered out from the corner, clutching a goblet of what smelled like diluted battery acid. He took a swig and yelled: “Creation-off!”. The room filled with excitement like a high school cafeteria where there was about to be a brawl. Creation-offs (Gods can make life, but can’t seem to come up with halfway decent names), were rare, and always ended in either spectacular beauty, or crushing failure. Either way, they were entertaining.

The gods formed a circle and began a loud chant, shaking the Break Room walls, as Steve stretched the sleep from his drunken limbs and cracked his knuckles. “Piece of cake,” he mumbled, trying his best to think of an idea better than dinosaurs (there really aren’t any). In the end he settled on a race of tiny bear people, which would have been adorable and hilarious, if he had actually managed to do it. This feat would not be achieved until much later by George Lucas in the 1980s.

Rather than creating a race of fuzzy bears, Steve recited the incantation for massive fireball (in his defense, they are similar). The sky darkened above the planet earth as a massive, flaming rock was conjured out of nothing. Billions of pea-brained lizards looked up in astonishment as a second sun formed briefly, and then extinguished all life.

Steve was put on probation for 2 billion years, and the gods were left with scorched earth. In the end, they had to spin the wheel of creation; a giant wheel with a list of the god’s names created as a whimsical alternative to “dibs”. It was the only fair way to decide who got to create life next, and it added a bit of flare to an otherwise bland decorating scheme. The wheel landed on Stewart, and everyone let out an audible groan. Stewart was terrible at creating, but fair was fair, and thus we ended up with humans…