No Bullshit Bible Lesson #8: Haggling with God

Genesis, Chapter 18:

God came to Abraham once again, now that Abraham had mutilated every penis in his household. It was a hot day and God came to Abraham as he sat in the doorway of his tent. When he looked up, Abraham saw three men standing by him. “By” in a pretty loose sense, since Abraham then jumped up and ran to them. God must have ducked behind a camel, though, because Abraham seems not to have noticed Him at all.
        “Hey, don’t go anywhere! Let me send for some water, I’ll have a slave wash your feet. You just rest here under the tree! And I’ll get you some bread, as your humble servant.” he exclaimed, strangely eager to please some total strangers that wandered in out of the desert and not acting at all as a Father of nations, despite the “ah” in his name which was, somehow, meant to indicate that.

He then ran in the tent.
        “Sarah!” he called out, “Go get three measures of meal, knead it and make some cakes!” Then he ran out to the stables, found a nice, tender calf ad had the stable boy kill it expediently. Once that was finished, he brought the meat, plus milk and butter, to the men, and they all chowed down.
        “Where’s your wife, Sarah?” said one of the men.
        “Oh, over in the tent,” replied Abraham, not wondering how the hell this clown knew his wife’s name.
        “I’m gonna come back according to the time of life, and she’s gonna have a son,” the man replied, not creeping Abraham out at all.

Behind them, at the door of the tent, Sarah heard this and laughed to herself,
        “Is that guy saying that he’s going to give this 90 year old woman pleasure, which I clearly haven’t known in a while since my husband’s no spring chicken either?”

The Lord had not yet seen fit to create Viagra, after all.

And the Lord (presumably jumping out from behind the aforementioned camel) said to Abraham,
        “Why did Sarah Laugh and doubt that she shall have a child due to her grievous age?”
        “I didn’t laugh!” lied Sarah, rather than just point out that some stranger had just said he was gonna rape her next time he passed through town.
        “Uh, yeah you totally did,” the Lord retorted.

Then, the men stood and looked in the direction of Sodom, suddenly and without any apparent reason. God wondered if he should hide what he was about to do from Abraham, because he knew Abraham was a bleeding-heart Liberal. Finally, he decided to just come clean.
        “Okay, I’m going down to Sodom and Gomorrah, because I have gotten God-Vibes that there’s a lot of sinning goin’ on down there. So, I’m going down in person to see for myself and if they didn’t really sin, I’ll know. If they did, though. Oh, it’s on. I’m gonna wipe those asses off the face of My Green Earth.”

The three men took off toward Sodom, but Abraham stayed to chat with God.

        “Let me ask you a hypothetical. What if, hypothetically, there are 50 good people down there? Are you gonna kill them with all the rest, or would you spare them and only kill the wicked?”
        “Dude, if there are 50 good people in that hell-hole, I’ll spare the whole lot of them, just for the sake of that 50.”
        “What if there are only 45 good people?”
        “Fine, I’ll spare everyone if there are 45 good people,” He replied with an inward sigh.
        “What if there are 40?”
        “You’re pushing you’re luck, bro. But, sure.”
        “What if there are 30?”
        “Are you kidding me? Fine, 30 good people, and Sodom and Gomorah don’t get toasted.”
        “Good. How ‘bout 20?”
        “You are really pissing me off here. This is why I didn’t want to tell you. But, if you want, yes, I will spare everyone for the sake of 20 lousy good people.”
        “Ten?”
        “Okay, fine, whatever. If there are so many as ten decent people in that Me-Forsaken place, I’ll let the whole damn place live -- BUT YOU BETTER NOT SAY ANOTHER WORD!”

So God went to do what it is He does, and Abraham went back into his tent.