Our heaven is their hell, said God. I like a balanced universe.

There were a lot of gods. Gods always come in handy, they justify almost anything.

You might even provide a Heaven for them. We need You for that. Hell we can make for ourselves.

The way I understand things, the Bible may have been thought out by God, but it was written down by men. And like everything men write down, such as the newspapers, they got the main story right but some of the details wrong.

Antinous sighed. 'The gods wanted to destroy us,' he said. 'That's everyone's excuse for behaving badly,' I said.

Two-thirty comes during Testifying. It's Janine, telling about how she was gang-raped at fourteen and had an abortion.But whose fault was it? Aunt Helena says, holding up one plump finger. Her fault, her fault, her fault. We chant in unison. Who led them on? She did. She did. She did. Why did God allow such a terrible thing to happen? Teach her a lesson. Teach her a lesson. Teach her a lesson.

the gods often mumble