We’ve all been faced with the question at some point in our lives: Just who is God? Who’s to say that this great being is not walking amongst the world’s population as I write this? Furthermore, who is knowledgeable enough about God’s whereabouts to dispute my claim that God is, in fact, the mother of every living soul wandering our planet? No one. Thus, a joke that began as simple conversation in a Ruby Tuesdays right off of Biscayne became an actual theory: Ways to tell if Your Mother is God.

The simplest and most interesting test is also scientifically proven; Mothers give life, and they can revoke it as well. God is known as The Creator, so the title is rather fitting. Examples of this? Just try arguing with your mother. You’ll find that, by the end of the argument (with you in a flood of tears and she bearing down on you for the kill) that she will have, at one point or another, threatened your life or made some reference to giving it to you. Our personal favourite? “I was in labor with you for nineteen hours and this is the thanks you give me?” This is usually followed by unintelligible enraged shrieking that even banshees couldn’t decipher. Not enough for your skeptical audience? Try this one: refuse to do your chores. Just once. The look from her that will follow your defiance will be enough to strike fear and loyalty into your heart. That brings us to our next test.

Mothers rule by instilling fear into their followers. Namely, the children and partner living in their household. You and your audience will find that a simple look (mentioned above) is usually enough to have her bidding done. When God said “Let there be light”, the sun did not hesitate to shine. Likewise, when mom says “Let there be a clean house”, dust itself runs away in fear. As most extremely religious people know and exemplify, God does not have an enormous amount of followers because of love. Most follow God out of fear of hell or any preconceived notion of the afterlife. Mothers rule their households in much the same way. Once a rule is broken under mother’s seemingly omnipresent eyes, it is never broken again. Think about that when you consider refusing to do the dishes again.

The last point of this guide, but certainly not the only last piece of evidence for this theory, is of the warm-and-fuzzy variety. God is said to have an enormous amount of love for all of “his” creations and a never-ending supply of forgiveness. Mothers are exactly the same when it comes to their children. The lengths that mothers go to to protect and provide for their children sometimes borders on criminal (by societal standards), but is the most sound evidence we have for this (severely) whacked-up theory. If the general public fails to see that not only the relationship between emptiness-loneliness-and-cleanliness is equal to godliness, then there are perhaps people in the general population that are more whacked-up than our spur-of-the-moment theory.

Regardless of any religious views, any decent person should be able to see the similarities between our mothers and any perception we may have of what the “higher being” or “vital force” that created us is supposed to be. Our mothers are God, and we should treat them with that reverence.