Ra's booming voice filled the room, "Gods, goddesses, demigods, and devils. We have gathered here today to discuss the important matters of the universe. Today, we are joined by Jesus Christ of Nazareth."
Jesus stood to a round of applause and a begrudgingly slow clap from Satan. "I am Jesus, the son of God himself. I hung on a cross to atone for human sins, but I was raised by my father in order to continue the great work of spreading Christianity and the love of God to all the lost and broken-"
"Yeah, yeah. We all know the spiel, get on with it," Lucifer muttered sarcastically. The comment was greeted by disapproving looks from Ra and Buddha, the pacifist.
"Moving on. Next, let us hear from Allah," sputtered Ra quickly to avoid a giant debate, which the gods are more than prone to getting.
Allah stood slowly and paused to look into each gods' eyes before speaking. "I am Allah. My prophet is Mohammad, through which I used to write the Quron, the holiest book in Islam. My religion teaches that there is no god worthy of worship except the one and only god, me."
Satan and Hades chuckled, and Jupiter puts his head between his hands exasperatedly.
"Okay. Now we shall here from Buddha," said Ra, after a brief moment of awkwardness.
Buddha remained seated and began to speak softly. Some gods on the opposite side of the table leaned forward to catch what he has to say. "I am Buddha, I do not claim to be anyone but who I am. Once, I lived a privileged existence, sheltered from life's hardships. After going on a four day journey and witnessing the hardships of the world, I began to feel I could no longer enjoy my life of comfort and security. I then lived a humble life, teaching that all living things must endue suffering, until eventually being reincarnated as a god."
Ra continued, letting each god introduce themselves and their religions. Odin, then Hades, Athena, Satan, Jupiter, and then himself, "Thank you, Jupiter, for than stunning retelling of how each Roman letter got it's name. And now, me. I am Ra, leader of all Egyptian gods and creator of the universe. I--"
"Actually," Cut in Jesus, breaking the respectful silence, "my dad created the universe. There are documents and everything."
Jupiter stood up, claiming that he had, in fact, created the Universe. Allah retorted by saying he created the humans, even if Jupiter created the universe.
Odin stood up on his cane, slowly catching his breath after the strenuous activity before muttering, "I made the Human Realm out of the decaying body of my grandfather." Afterwards collapsing back into his chair.
Buddha shouted, "my previously incarnated self came up with the idea before any of you."
"Oh, stop lying to yourself!" Jesus called from across the table.
"Go back to daddy, you spoiled brat!" Ra chimed in.
Jesus stood, face red with rage. "Take that back you senile, old fool!"
"He's old?" Jupiter muttered, "Have you seen Odin?"
Odin grunted, unable to spare the energy to form a response. But this grunt was barley heard over the low hum that had begun to fill the room.
The noise increased as the shadows next to Hades began to morph into a swirling chasm, from which climbed out Cerberus. The three-headed dog leaped onto the table. Unable to grasp the slick edges, he slid off the surface in the direction of Buddha, who levitated quickly out of the way, before settling back into his chair.
"SILENCE!" Hades roared, his words echoing across the chamber before silence settled back among the gods. "Now, perhaps we can handle this civilly. If not, Cerberus has been needing a new chew toy as of late and they are very hard to come by in the Underworld."
No one dared to speak.
"Now, If you would be so kind to explain yourself, Odin, it would be gratefully appreciated." Hades settled back into his seat, Cerberus curled up behind him gnawing on a bone that looked suspiciously like a human head.
Odin stood again, resting lightly on his cane. His raspy voice was barely audible, "When I birthed this realm, I took my time and signed my work." Paused momentarily to cough into his, he continued on, "Located in the North-West region of the stars is a large constellation of myself, proof that I created the universe."
"Yeah," Jupiter said, stifling a yawn, "I've seen it. Looks like a five year old drew it. I have a fancier constellation, and it's stars are much older than the puny ones used to make up yours."
Allah stood up, hands held up in mock surrender. "Alright, alright. You got me. When I created the universe, I made a few doodles of my best friends, the gods. You know, all you guys. Wow, I need to get out more. . ."
"I don't see no stars with me on them," Satan muttered under her breath.
"Allah," Hades asked, who was still in control of the court.
Allah pushed his chair back to stand up. "I, unlike all of you, have documentation of my deed." He reached into his deep pockets and rummaged around, before pulling out a small, aged scroll. He held it out before him and read aloud, "Note to self: why not create the universe sometime? Might be fun, right?" He turned it around to face the audience, tapping violently at the bottom right corner of the paper. "It's dates 508 B.U."
"B.U?" Jesus frowned.
"Before Universe. Duh."
There was a slight silence as everyone in the room rolled their eyes (or eye in the case of Odin). Then Jesus stood up, "I believe my evidence to be more solid than that pitiful lie."
"Hey!" Allah started but a deep growl from Cerberus silenced him.
"Hold on a sec. I just gotta get to the page," Jesus muttered to no one in particular as he scrolled through his smartphone, tapping the screen here and there.
"Ah ha! There!" Jesus turned the screen around toward the gods, beaming proudly. On the screen, Twitter showed God's account. "My father has 99,427,862 followers on Twitter. Clearly he made the universe, otherwise he wouldn't have that many followers."
Jesus sat down, arms crossed, with a smug look on his face. A voice, maybe Satan, called out calling Jesus a daddy's boy. Jesus retorted, and within seconds the whole court was up in arms screaming at each other. Hades shouted, banging a gravel on the cold table, but the yelling continued.
The yelling went on for an eternity, until a voice rose above the rest, "Maybe Athena could council us in this matter?"
The voices stopped, pondering this, then all head turned to the Goddess of Wisdom.
The woman had sat, silent and judging, the whole time without moving a muscle. She paused, head tilted at an angle and deep in thought.
Athena pushed her glasses up higher on her nose. "I do not know who created the universe. It could be any of you, it could be all of us, or it could have been none of us. Either way, it doesn't matter. Look at yourselves. You fight and bicker, as do your followers. And tell me, what does it accomplish?! All of you are so powerful, mighty, and knowledgeable; yet you squander all that in some useless quarrel. Illness and war rage on below us, but instead of helping, we fight, and the truth is: it doesn't matter who created the universe, it only matters what we do with it now that it's here."
