Some
of the things that pop up regularly on my Facebook page are
posted from Big Think which popularizes advanced scientific
research and speculation for the reasonably literate lay person. Most often I glance at the summary but
delve into the articles from time to time. Frankly, most sail over my head. Sometimes articles contradict each
other as scientists advance different hypotheses. An awful lot leaves me mystified.
I am
no scientist, philosopher, or theologian—some of the most speculative
stuff seems to demand that, too. I
am a humanities major who dropped out of college and spent
most of my working life as a blue collar worker, janitor,
and gas station clerk—manifestly incompetent to understand
much of what I read.
But
in my head I strung together a fragile paper chain from different
posts unrelated to each other.
Blame me, not science, by my perhaps bizarre take away. Thus. this verse.
Cosmos, Consciousness, and Creator—Me!
April
6, 2022
Those scientists are at it again!
According to what I read,
some of
them think that maybe
the cosmos,
everything,
can
be explained by quantum mechanics,
so
can consciousness,
and
everything might be
the
creation of the consciousness
that
observes it.
That’s me, if I get this straight.
Whew!
If somehow you are reading this
I
guess it means you too,
but damned
if I know if
your
universe is anything like mine.
It also means I am responsible for the whole shebang—
the Big
Bang, the Milky Way sky
from
a Montana mountain top,
super
novas, and galaxy devouring black holes,
the
extinction of the dinosaurs,
and
Krakatoa East of Java.
And for all the works of Shakespeare,
even the
ones I never read,
the
Mona Lisa and Van Gogh’s Starry Night,
Hieronymus
Bosch, your toddler’s
finger
paint smears.
Fill
in the blanks for the other noble arts.
Then there are the people,
every
blesséd and blasted one of them
since
Lucy in that African gorge,
all
of their stories and quirks
from
knuckle dragging hunters and gathers
to
walking on the Moon.
And if I die, which seems likely,
will they
go pffft with me
or
will they go on screwing and dying
because
having set this thing a-spinning
it
just goes on and on out of habit?
All the beauty and grandeur of all those folks
but
also the Black Death, the Inquisition,
slavery,
the Holocaust,
and every babe mowed down
in yet another school shooting.
It’s all too much.
I can’t stand it.
Which is why I evidently invented God,
who I
don’t really believe in at all,
just
so I would have someone
to point to and say—
“It’s not me,
It’s him/her/they/it.”
Am I off the hook?
—Patrick Murfin
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