1 Christianity is a Prank

The sun shined down brightly on the gods of Mt Olympus. The wind blew pleasantly. Laughter could be heard all around. Hermes and the other gods were around a campfire. Hermes to spoke to the other Gods, "I have a wonderful prank we could do on humanity."

All the gods around him leaned closer interested in this idea and were more accepting of the persuasive words of the god of thieves due to their intoxication. He spoke, "What if we prank the mortals into another pantheon existing. But this pantheon will only have one god."

Apollo grinned drunkenly. "That's a wonderful idea. Who do we have to ro-hic-pe into this to get this wondrous idea to work?" asked Apollo drunkenly, swaying in place. Dionysus slowly leaned in slowly and spoke, "Whoever we need, leave it to me. I'll get them, hic," Dionysus added while slightly slurring his words.

"We need to get Demeter in this because when I'm envisioning this, you Apollo can do a light show where we tell the mortals we are taking the darkness and disorder and making order, goodness, and beauty. Then for the second bit we have to get Prometheus in on-"

"Wait Hermes, How are we going to get Prometheus in on it? He's still stuck at that rock being pecked by Father's bird," Interrupted Apollo. Dionysus interwove his fingers, placed them on his lap, then spoke, "Well, this is my time to shine," with a drunk grin on his face. "I could bribe him," suggested Hermes.

"Okay let's split it, Dionysus gets him drunk, and Hermes you bribe him. Then Hermes you continue with how you want the prank to go," Apollo said. A few minutes passed by of Hermes wobbling back and forth. Apollo slapped him in the face and repeated what he said.

"Cough, okay so we need to get Prometheus to make more humans then tell them that we made him in the shape of us. We then need to put them in a forest that Demeter makes for them." "If we do this, how will we get Demeter to do this for us?" Asked a worried Apollo.

"Sigh, I'll get Persephone back to her for the next ten years," Hermes said with an unmotivated voice. "What will you promise Hades to get that?" Apollo asked. "I'll do his paperwork for the next ten years in return."

Horror marked Apollo's face as Dionysus had been asleep for the last twenty minutes of the conversation. "Yes it's terrible, but it's for the prank and that'll be funny, so worth it." Apollo agreed with a grin on his face. "Continue please."

"After Demeter makes this place we will put the two humans that Prometheus made in it. They will be told they are made in God's character, to represent God's will, and to harness the potential of this world. We will tell them a few rules of what is good and bad."

"Okay, seems good so far and what's the catch with this wonderful place. I know you Hermes, you don't give things out for charity." "Fine Apollo you caught me. We are going to have something called the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the middle and there will be a snake that 'God creates'. It really will be you Apollo making her sacred animal and having it persuade them to eat the fruit from the tree."

"And what happens after you eat the fruit?" asked Apollo curiously. "Well if they don't they will trust 'God's' version of the truth and evil they will seize autonomy and define good and evil for themselves. And if they trust 'God' then everything will stay the same, but that snake will be very persuasive, so they will eat the fruit and they will be kicked out of the garden in response and also punished."

Apollo kicked Dionysus, waking him up. He explained everything to him. "Okay the plan is a go, so do your part. But Hermes you should go get Persephone, so we can get Demeter to make the forest. And I'll bribe father, so we can get Prometheus."

Hermes nodded, regretting his decision of doing the paperwork of Hades. He stood up, tripped himself, and fell on his face. He got up with a little difficulty and left to go to the underworld to visit and make a deal with his uncle.

Hermes arrived in the underworld only after a few incidents. He slowly made his way across the tough black jagged land the underworld is. That was until he saw it, his Uncle's mansion. The giant black building with windows that seemed to light up Hermes day.

At the sight of the mansion, he immediately began to race toward it. He made it to the door in a few seconds. In his haste, he slammed into the door. With a dull thud, the door broke down. Hermes groaned as he collapsed to the ground on top of the door.

Hades on the other side of the door, not impressed at what his nephew just did frowned. "Sigh, what do you want, nephew?" Still laying on the expensive mahogany door Hermes said, "Uncle I didn't think I would see you?" "You broke down my door, of course I will check what's making all this ruckus."

"Right," an ashamed Hermes said. Tap, tap, the sound of shoes came from a far away hallway and echoed through the room they were currently in. "Hades, did you find out what was making all that sound?" spoke the woman that came into Hermes view from the hallway. Not waiting for her husband to respond she looked at the broken door. "Oh, Hermes, what brings you down here?" She said in a rather annoyed tone.

"I just wanted to grab you Persephone for the next ten years or so and could do Hades a favor or two as a deal." Neither god or goddess seemed interested in this deal. Persephone asked Hermes, "What makes you think I'll leave my husband for anything you can do for me, or him?"

Hermes continued to offer more and more things, but neither Persephone or Hades seemed to have any interest in anything that Hermes could do for them. Hermes seeing that he had failed his part of the plan left the underworld with a heavy heart.

He went back to Olympus to hear some good news from the other two. He delivered some packages realizing he was late and came back to the two gods frowning. "Please tell me you guys have some good news." Both of them frowned in response telling Hermes that they failed too. But to really rub it in Dionysus said, "We tried to bribe Zeus, but he and his ego wouldn't have it as he remembered how Prometheus insulted him by giving him the fat and stealing fire for the humans."

In shame at failing so badly, they all went back to the campfire to think and drink together. Apollo asked for more wine. Dionysus took his chalice and smacked Apollo on the top of the head knocking him off his seat. He got up and smiled. "Guys I have an idea." All of them, not particularly interested in his idea due to how big their earlier failure was, but still curiously asked together while still rather intoxicated, "What is your idea?" Apollo responded, "Just take your idea Hermes," while pointing at Hermes unsteadily.

"Okay and what do we do with it?" Dionysus asked with a frown on his face. "Right, we could make it a puppet show," Apollo said with enthusiasm. "And what is a puppet show?" "Right, it's basically something we make by adding things to a bag that we add things to make it look more human. Then we put our hand up the base of it and start moving it around," he said as he made one and started to play with it in front of the other two.

Hermes shrugged, stood up then said, "Come on it couldn't be worse of a failure than my idea right?" then began to walk away. Apollo started to follow and Dionysis seeing this as an opportunity to have some fun joined in. They left and arrived in a sandy land filled with different people.

They didn't bat an eye at three men appearing in their city. Apollo started to set everything up. A wooden stand that had a completely black outside. He finished the setup and they started to let bursts of light to get the peoples attention. Then they started.

An old man with a white hair and a long beard popped out of the back of the stand. The puppet started to glow. Mutters could be heard behind the stand. "Apollo, too much power, you'll blind the mortals." The light started to dim a little bit, so the people watching could see the show.

In a booming voice Apollo narrated, "At first there was nothing except darkness and disorder, and so God took the darkness and made order, goodness, and beauty," Apollo said while making a light show of the puppet, making it flash and some shiny sparkles appear behind the puppet and vines grew from the floor wrapping around the stand.

A puppet of a man and woman came from the stand, for Apollo to continue narrating, "And so Adam," the male puppet was shaken, "And, Eve were created in God's image," he said as the female puppet was shaken. "They were placed in the forest of Eden which had 2 trees with food on them.

One, the tree of life, the other the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They lived happily together till a snake came down and convinced Eve to eat a fruit!"

"After eating some she shared it with Adam, her husband, but this caused them to be extremely ashamed to show each other their nude forms," Apollo narrated as the puppets started to cover themselves up with leaves from the vines and their little puppet hands.

"After Adam and Eve did this it disappointed and enraged God to the extreme. He cursed them and the serpent," Apollo changes his voice to even deeper and louder and shouts in character of god, "I curse you Eve, to have miserable pain when giving birth to children, as well as subjugation to your husband." In response her puppet started to dance around by one of the vines, with Dionysus in a desperate feminine voice shouted, "Nooo," while doing a little walk of shame to show how much she regretted her actions.

Then Apollo continued in his deep voice, " I curse the ground so you Adam struggle to produce food. This caused Hermes to shout, "Why God, why?" and moved his pupped back and forth. The only response he got in return was the old puppet looking at him in disappointment.

Apollo picked up where he left off, "I banish you both from the Garden of Eden, and finally the worst of you I curse you snake, with having to wriggle on the ground and have to slither anywhere you go. The snake, hearing his punishment, coiled and jumped at god," The puppet shot at god, but a vine grasped the snake puppet and threw it back down. The puppet of god looked down at the snake puppet.

"I am very disappointed in you. I curse you slowly lose your intelligence to slowly go mad and only rely on instinct from now on."

At the end of the show the gods disappeared with the stand except for Apollo who turned into an old man with white robes in front of the people, grinned, then disappeared in a flash of golden light.