March 17, 2001 (idea)

What if God is just a loyal end-user to the WhizBang!© Universe Company, Inc. Perhaps He bought the thing empty; he never claimed to have created it, after all; just a lot of light and space and terraforming, really. He commanded Moses to love no other god before him, which I suppose makes sense since he created the place. But what if the beings in the house down the street, the universe next door, have a better god? Maybe he's real nice and very straightforward, walks among his creations with a good word and a smile for everyone, unlike this unapproachable type-A we've got for a boss?
Maybe our universe came that close to getting picked! But at the last minute the Nice God picked the universe on the shelf next to us, and Our God came along and picked us.
I wish gods wouldn't take universe-owning so lightly. They think they really want you, and at first they are present every day, playing with you and manifesting burning bushes for you and walking among you and treating you right; then after a while, they lose interest and they're busy, and the universe is going to seed and people get all depressed and go crazy and the voting gets very sad.