To answer your question about God being a practical joker, I am merely going to point out a few things.

1: God, as a being, is so far beyond our comprehension that we have no earthly idea :p what his intentions are if he even works off of intent. Our arogance is what makes God seem like a practical joker in thinking that what we define could ever apply to anything besides perception.

2: In accordance with free will, we are allowed to think, feel, classify how ever we see fit. This means that we are creating classifications of intent as well as classifications of logic which may or may not apply. In this way, we are the ones making the joke and at the same time, we are the punch line.

3: Logic is a wonderful tool. The second it is used as anything else, the tool becomes the user and the user becomes the tool.

4: In accordance with what I have said so far, it would be logically correct to say that the separation of body and mind is merely a perception. As such, it is impossible to comes to truth through these classifications and is thus an exercise in futility.

If God is a practical joker then he's more like the guy from the Saw movie. If God finds human suffering funny, then he can kiss my ass!

coberst, good question.

Taking the bible as a whole you get the impression that god really doesn't care a whole lot for humanity. He is quick to act and lazy with solutions or to put it a better way, he feels humans lack the ability to rehabilitate themselves. This is clearly stated by the concept of Jesus dying to save humanity from god. There is no other way you can put it realistically and honestly. There are of course many other examples of this behavior from god in the bible but would be here all day pointing them all out so I won't.

Could there be a god that created everything that is not the god depicted in the bible? I would say there could be but probably not, or if there is then that being really plays no part in this existence or otherwise things would happen that can't be explained rationally but there never is any such thing.

So the god portrayed in the bible is not even worthy of the title of god in my opinion. If you want to believe otherwise I shouldn't scold or prevent you from that and won't. If I end up in a bad place because of that, then so be it but it would only solidify my feeling not solve it.

I am convinced that humans have created a God so that we can delude our self into thinking that we are not really mortal; that there is life after death. We just cannot handle the anxiety of our mortality. I suspect many of the awful things that humans do are a result of the dread of death.

To the point--I hope I'll be forgiven--YHWH is not a practical joker.