This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you [Noah] and everything living around you and everyone living after you.
I’m putting my rainbow in the clouds, a sign of the covenant between me and the Earth. From now on, when I form a cloud over the Earth and the rainbow appears in the cloud, I’ll remember my covenant between me and you and everything living, that never again will floodwaters destroy all life. When the rainbow appears in the cloud, I’ll see it and remember the eternal covenant between God and everything living, every last living creature on Earth. – Genesis 9: 12-16 (The Message)
Yahweh/Allah/Eli/God/Ba’al/Zeus/Gitchy Manitou/The Force/yadayadayada “Yeah. But do they uphold their agreement with me?!? Hell no!”
Screwtape III: “[Ptui!] You called, Your Majesty? Perhaps we can interest you in one of our choicest properties in the Hadean Estates? High on the mountain overlooking the prime lava fountain? Just below the Luciferan Palace …?”
Y: “No! I did not call you! Back to your pits! Go! Begone! Git!!”
Jesus: “Look, Mom, I told you from the very beginning that this ‘everlasting covenant’ schtick was a bad idea! You can’t be going around limiting your options like that with them! Especially when you base the deal on a cheap physics trick! They’re just going to go back to beating on each other, and everything else, like they were immortal or something! I suppose you’re going to send me back there so I can get holes in my knees, too.”
Y: “You keep a civil tongue in your head, sonny. I’m not one of your disciples who you can snap and snort at and they’ll still fawn all over you! Stand up straight and show some respect! Better yet, make some use of yourself and clean up the mess that demon left behind.”
Muhammad: “‘Sonny’. All these millennia and I still can’t believe it.”
Jesus (to Muhammad): “Will you stop whining about it already! When you were down there, you had a wife. You had a household. You had an army, and you used it to win victories! Me? I got to hoof it around the countryside with a pack of idiots who never understood a word I said, never mind bothering to write any of it down until 50 years later. And the minute I tried to raise any sort of ruckus, I got nailed! I had to get something out of the deal!”
Muhammad (to Jesus): “Yeah right. Your crusades don’t count?”
Jesus (to Muhammad): “Only as much as your jihads!”
Y: “Shut up, the two of you! It’s the evil, evil, evil that’s all I see out of both of your followers that’s making me the laughingstock of the Smite Club!”
Jesus and Muhammad (unison): “Not my followers!”
Y: “Uh huh. Well, if either one of you has got a Noah squirreled away down there, you’d better trot him out, and soon, or else he’s going to perish along with all the rest of them. And if I can’t flood ’em out because I promised not to, believe me, I’ll find some other way!”
The Buddha: “Om.”
Y (to The Buddha): “Resistance is futile!!”
The Buddha (to Y): “Namaste. One who has attained enlightenment, not to mention omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence, might be expected to have a more subtle knowledge of circuit boards.”
Dude: “What kinda boards, dude?”
Dude: “Ya don’t wanna try ta ride one, dude. It’d be a shockin’ experience.”
Dude: “Ya mean, like, extreme? Gnarly!!”
Y (to Jesus, Muhammad, and The Buddha): “Who let them in here?”
Jesus, Muhammad, and The Buddha: “[All shrug]”
Y: “Well, so help me, I’ll give them something to surf! With or without a net!”
Dude: “Um, dude, that sounds like a wipeout.”
Dude: “‘R a wifi-out.”
Dude: “Either way …”
Y (to the Dudes): “Outa here!!”
Peter (to Y): “Apologies for the security breaches, Your Majesty. Resetting the bridge password now.”
Y (to Peter): “To what?”
Peter: “No trump.”
Y: “You’re a little late with that, aren’t you?”
Peter: “Following directives, Your Majesty.”
Y: “What directives?!?”
Peter: “First rule of access. ‘Allah is forgiving and merciful.'”
Jesus: “More promises?”
Y: “So I thought they’d only need one extermination to get the message.”
Muhammad: “Aaand, they didn’t get it. And now your hands are tied.”
The Buddha: “Are they?”
Y (to The Buddha): “Of course they’re not! I AM. But say on anyway.”
The Buddha: “You are bound into samsara. As are we all, even in this realm. Your craving is for obedience, to have the world accept your counsel, which you deem wise. But the world accepts only its own counsel, wise or not. So long as you crave this obedience, your karma is to seek it, and not find it, and be trapped by your seeking. Is this not so with your rainbow promise?”
Y: “Maybe …”
The Buddha: “But those at whom you are angry are also in samsara. They crave relief from the pain of samsara, but do not know where to find it. So they seek it in material comfort. For which they need energy from worldly fuel. Ever more fuel – for their karma is to seek relief from their pain in things that need fuel, and not find it, and be trapped by their seeking. So trapped that they wreck their world in their seeking, and do not yet perceive that it is they themselves who have done the wrecking.
“This wrecking has taken, and will take, many forms. One of which is flooding, which will occur as fuels are burned and the world warms from the burning. As people flee from the floods, they will see rainbows, and curse them, for they will understand that they come from the rains that are adding to the flooding. They will see the sign of your promise, and not hold you to it, for they will understand that, this time, they have truly brought the flooding upon themselves.”
Y: “Hm. Not sure how well this answer will go over at the Smite Club. But it does get me nicely off the hook.”
Muhammad: “No need for a new Noah, then?”
Jesus: “Or a new ark? They’ve got one down there, you know.”
Y: “It’d sink right off the pier. Give me credit for recognizing a myth when I see one, will you?”
Moses: “Even one that I wrote in your service?”
Y: “You did damned well, Mo. But after 3,000 years, and all this new tech, it’s time for some updates to Sales and Marketing. We’ll use you as a consultant.”