Hi, I’m God, and I have one simple question: What the fuck do you people think you’re doing? Have you gone insane? Seems like every other day, there’s another mass shooting. Or a war pops up. Or a drunken driver kills a child. Did you forget my commandment, thou shalt not kill? Other than that sex stuff, killing acts like your favorite pastime. If their skin color differs, kill them. If they speak an unfamiliar language, kill them. If their politics disagree, or they pray to a different “god”, kill them. And now you’ve got nuclear weapons. Oh, great. Just great.

     Do you know how big our universe is? Do you have any idea how long it took to initiate life on this tiny insignificant planet?

     Playing with nuclear bombs is not too bright. An overnight nuclear war could destroy my lifelong accomplishments and force me to do a restart. Jesus H. Christ.

     And speaking of the devil, my good friend Jesus, perhaps the finest human to walk the land, did not walk on water. One loaf of bread did not feed thousands. He did not resurrect, at least not the way they say in the Bible. After crucifixion, he never returned to chat with friends.

     To my other favorite prophet, Mohammad, women—if anything—are superior to men. And to those potential martyrs willing to blow themselves up for the cause, you’ll receive 21 of something—but you can take this to the bank, it ain’t gonna be virgins. To Siddhartha and his accolades, meditation is nice, but get off your lazy butts and make our world a better place. Oops, I nearly forgot about Abraham. Not in a thousand billion years would I ask any man to murder his child. I’d rather ask you to pray to a rock.

     Jesus loved to teach; Mohammad loved poetry. They connected with me, but please don’t assume all prophets are male. Indeed, my newest translator, Donna, the person deciphering my thoughts, looks like a woman to me. Opinions are mine; words are hers.

     And for god’s sake, stop assuming I’m omnipotent. I’m not. I don’t move mountains. I move atoms, and only under special circumstances. My finest skill: switching a single atom on a DNA molecule.

     Christians—not all—think I snapped my non-existent fingers and magically created an evil snake, plus Adam and Eve. Hate to disappoint, but the snap of my fingers took a billion years.

     Evangelical preachers tell their flocks when nuclear bombs launch, I’ll jump on my golden chariot, land on 5^th Avenue, and use my vast powers to save humanity. Gee, I wish, but when the bombs start exploding, I can’t do a goddamn thing. Sorry guys, you’re screwed. Bye-bye, people. Bye-bye, four billion years of effort on my part.

     Yes, forty thousand years ago, I made a little mistake. I apologize, and if I had arms and legs, I’d drop to my knees and beg for forgiveness.

     What did I do? I kicked your IQ up a notch, and your ancestors went bonkers. First act, eradicate Neanderthals and all other human species who look different (evil). Second act, hunger for power and control (abusive). Third act, pray to stone idols (idiotic).  

     Don’t feel too inferior, but the only people worth a damn are aboriginal Australians and African Khoisan. If bullets and bombs don’t annihilate them, DNA will.

     The problem: when I upped your intelligence, I ignored your emotions. I adore your love, but the opposite of love is hate. Hatred is the enemy. Everyone’s enemy. Yours and mine.

     I’m not finished with my frustrations. I’ve got another burr up my butt. What’s this crap about hell? Do you guys really think I’m a sadistic, revengeful, nasty son-of-a-bitch who sends sinners into a burning hell for eternity because they forgot to bow to Mohammad or Jesus or whoever? If so, do you think I’m evil? I’m not.

     There are times I wish we did have a hell. I’d love to send wannabe Hitlers to a deep, dark, burning hot dungeon.

     Otherwise, the few I’d want to see in a hell are preachers who threaten their flocks with hell and eternal damnation. Our discussion upon their demise shall not be pleasant. I will figuratively wrap my hands around their scrawny little throats and figuratively squeeze.

     And should you consider harming children, my strongest advice, don’t.

     To hell with hell. Let’s talk heaven. The pious, the overly faithful, crave to forever kneel at my feet. The first million years might be wondrous, but sooner or later, boredom would get so thick, you’d rather live in glue. To me, kneeling at my non-existent feet for eternity sounds the perfect definition of hell.

     Let me tell you a simple truth. Heaven is amazing. Fantastic. Beyond your wildest imagination. Assuming you’ve led a decent life, here’s how it works: after you die, your spirit can journey anywhere in the past and join with any person. If you’re an astronomer, you can reach backwards to the beginning of time and fast forward. No need for Hubble or James Webb telescopes. Geologists can watch planets churn, mountains form, grow, and erode. Paleontologists can follow a billion years of evolution. If you’re a historian, you can rerun the lives of Alexander the Great or Abraham Lincoln.

    Eventually, everyone gets bored playing Ghost. Don’t worry. You have a job, an actual job, which I shall explain later. And this isn’t your story, it’s mine. Let’s begin.

THE BEGINNING

     My life began at the Big Bang. This is a guess, because I have no memory of my birth or the initial onset of time. A billion Earth years passed before I gained any ability to build memories or to understand my world. Metaphorically, I started life as a baby. Metaphorically, your modern era is turning me into an old man.

     I am the opposite of any all-powerful higher being you might envision. I don’t have a body. No lips to smile, no eyes for tears, but this I guarantee, I can laugh and sometimes cry.

     I’m fully aware of every activity in your physical universe. I envision all, but I am blind. I know things happen but can’t “see” them happening. I need you to “see” the world. You need me to sense the beauty.

     When you look at a table, you see a table. When I observe a table, I “see” reality. I “see” atoms and molecules with vast distances between. I know energy from the sun is absorbed by the table. I know brown rays are emitted from the table. I cannot “see” the brown rays.

     A child can touch a toy. I can’t. A teenager can listen to music. I can’t. I know sound waves exist, but not the music they make. I need you to hear the sounds. You need me to love the music.

     Although I can reach backwards in time, I can’t change the past. I can’t reverse a disaster, start over, and force a redo. We are equally adept at guessing the future.

     I’m not bound by time or distance. In an instant, I can focus my essence from Earth to a galaxy a million light years away. Or become nebulous. Exist everywhere. A few thousand years ago, my energy divided into segments, and that’s when human consciousness was born.

     When your physicists discovered dark matter and dark energy, they didn’t realize but they also found my home, the place where my thoughts and infinite memory reside.

     I am omniscient, totally aware, but not omnipotent. I can’t perform miracles. Working within the boundaries of quantum mechanics, I can urge a photon to move here, not there. On Earth, at specific times, I can alter DNA nucleotides. These are the limits of my so-called vast powers.

THE UNIVERSE

     Within the realm of “dark” matter and “dark” energy, I learned how to compile memories, to use logic, and to gain a reasonable level of self-awareness. Then in an instant, I detected an alternate dimension, an alternate reality. I discovered your amazing physical universe. This became my playground, a place to have fun, to play games. Now, it’s where I work.

     Today, parents buy chemistry sets for their kids. My chemistry set was the universe, and I loved experimenting with atoms and molecules to see what I could build. 

     I’m not bound by space or time, but my miniscule powers are transitory and limited. I can’t cause lightning. Can’t cause volcanoes to explode or earthquakes to quake. Can’t stop them either. If an oversized asteroid takes aim at Earth, there’s nothing I can do.

     And dammit, I can’t stop a bullet.

     Ten billion years ago, I picked a faraway planet as my personal playground. Back then, Earth and your entire solar system held nothing more than an accumulation of gas and dust.

     Playing with physical matter isn’t easy. At first, I tried to assemble unique rocks and minerals. Impossible. Silicates are great to observe over millions of years, but their molecules lock together so tightly, they’re impossible for me to alter. Carbon atoms are relatively easy to manipulate, and this wannabe chemist learned how to build Tinker Toy chains of carbon molecules. One day after a fierce lightning storm, I discovered amino acids. I loved stringing them together into a zillion possible combinations. Great fun, ignoring one exasperating frustration, my tinker toys always fell apart. Without my full attention, natural forces destroyed my creations (do young gods have temper tantrums? I did.)

     Kids are fascinated by soap bubbles, and this kid got a weird idea. What if I use amino acids to reinforce the bubble walls? Would my carbon chains survive longer inside a bubble?

     You call my bubbles, cells. You call my folded-up strings of amino acids, proteins. And you call my spiral chains, RNA. Intertwined RNA becomes DNA.

     Simple bacteria came first. Then one day, a virus snuck inside a bacterium, survived, and the two worked together as a team. DNA reproduces in the inner cell. Proteins are forged in the outer cell.

     For my next trick, I invented sex. Mix one critter’s DNA with a second critter’s DNA, and you get variety. Variety propels competition. That’s when our friend, Mother Nature, picks winners and losers. That’s when, like a kid watching cartoons, I can watch the game of life. Not lift a finger. Just lay back and enjoy the amazing show.

     I had no idea disaster was approaching.

 

Watching biologic life is like watching a football game. Endless competition. To the victor go the spoils. And when battles turn ugly, I might drop a flag or block a punt. Don’t call me God; call me Coach. Or Ref.

     In my game of fantasy football, I never hesitate to bench a player or an entire team. Sadly, too often, I screw up and pick the wrong quarterback. Hey, I’m God, not Mr. Perfect.

     Single-cell bacteria are incredibly intricate, but after a billion years, fascination dies. Players play the same game, repeating the same routine plays, over and over. Boring.

     Sometimes, for fun, I’d cut one section of DNA from one cell and place it into another. Results were not always pretty.

     Hungry for fresh possibilities, I wondered what would happen if two cells glued together to act as a team. I envisioned huge cellular blobs battling other huge cellular blobs in an endless fight for domination.

 

STARS AND PLANETS

     While dreaming of futuristic blobs fighting to the death, a major problem popped up. My planet’s water supply ran dry. Without water, biologic chemistry stops. Life deteriorates. It dies. My game ends.

     What happened? The damn sunlight boiled the oceans dry. My billion-year struggle vanished with the wind, the solar wind.

     What did I do? What else? I found a second viable planet and restarted the process. Same game; same results. Another billion years creating complex life wasted when the atmosphere and oceans dissipated into space.

     “God dammit,” I cursed.

     Did I quit? No. I tried huge planets, cold ones, rocky ones, frozen ones. Quickly learned a planet’s size, weight, and distance to its sun controls life’s capacity to survive.

     I may not be brilliant, but I’m not dumb. As time passed, it became obvious rocky planets became red and dead. Blue ones hold water longer, but why?

     After taking an inventory of our entire universe, I spot the connection. Blue Earth-like planets have large iron cores. Red Mars-like planets do not. Reaching backwards in time, I spot another connection. Many iron-rich blue planets had collided with a second planet. After their collision and repair, a planet’s iron core might double in size and buddy up with an iron-poor moon.

     The bad news: iron-rich planets generate an electromagnetic force field that extends far out into space. These fields restrict my limited energy and weaken my ability to build carbon compounds.

     The good news: sometimes the electromagnetic field collapses, giving me a chance to adjust DNA.

From a list of thousands, I chose a blue planet called Earth. Time to start anew.

 

EARTH

     Four billion years ago, I picked Earth as my new chemistry set. It seemed ideal. An enlarged iron core. Plenty of water. A moon. Excellent atmosphere. Here, I’d play the long game and see what happens.

     After concocting carbon compounds on earlier planets, I had become quite adept at messing with the internal structures of single-celled organisms. I assumed installing complex life on our blue planet should be equally quick and easy. Instead, the damned geomagnetic field froze me out, blocking my ability to coach life. Although I enjoyed watching the game, being a hapless participant made it impossible to jump in and fix the genetics.

     “God dammit,” I cursed.

     Fortunately, every so often, Mother Nature’s interfering electromagnetism collapses, and she lets me call a few plays. That’s nice, but boring bacteria continue to dominate.

     Then a game changer: a unique single-celled creature, using the energy of sunlight, sucked up carbon dioxide and expelled oxygen (in time, these guys will become known as plants).

     Atmospheric carbon dioxide warms Earth’s climate; atmospheric oxygen cools it. As oxygen increased, Earth cooled, then froze into a big snowball. During this frigid period, polar glaciers edged north and south until merging at the equator. On our frozen planet, two oxygen-loving bacteria, using a protein adhesive, snuggled together keeping relatively warm while their single-celled friends either stayed warm near underwater hot springs or froze to death.

     My merging cells never became formless blobs, not like I expected. Instead, spongy fingers reached into the water for sustenance.

 

BUBBLES

     If I could sing, my favorite song would be, I’m forever Blowing Bubbles. After the big freeze, bubbles once again became critical to life’s journey on our planet Earth.

     The earliest multi-cell animals were sponges. Snap off a piece and they reproduce. Not once did I spot sponges fighting epic battles in a war for survival.

     Bubbly spheres, built with multiple cells, triggered complex life. In humans, soon after conception, a miniscule sphere starts a baby’s journey.

     Put a dent in a sphere and you have a mouth and a stomach. Split the sphere down the middle with one side mimicking the other, and you have bilateral symmetry. Who uses bilateral symmetry? Invertebrates (insects and oysters) and vertebrates (fish and humans).

     Life requires energy. Energy needs food. To absorb food, you need a stomach and a method to eliminate waste—preferably not out the mouth. Connect a second dent at the mouth’s opposite end and you’ll have a proper place for excess food to escape.

     Elongate a sphere, wrap a layer of skin around it, and you’ve got a worm. The inner layer digests food. The middle layer holds kidneys, brains, nerves, muscles and hearts. And don’t forget the ever-important boy-parts and girl-parts.

     Worms use muscles to find food. Muscles require energy and oxygen. Oxygen is sucked out of seawater. Blood absorbs oxygen and carries nutrients. Arteries and veins bring blood to cells. Hearts pump blood. Kidneys remove byproducts. Brains use nerves to send messages to muscles. Muscles contract.

     What was I doing to assist complex life? During geomagnetic collapses, I passed skin genes, muscle and heart genes, nerve and brain genes back and forth between vertebrates and invertebrates like a deranged doctor in a Frankenstein movie.             

     The result? Beautiful worms and beautiful slugs. What did these wiggly guys do? They ate bacteria, and when they ran out of bacteria, they ate each other. Competition begins. Instead of peaceful symbiosis, life becomes kill or be killed, predator and prey, eat or be eaten. Here’s a sad reality: in nature, without competition, without enemies, evolution doesn’t evolve.

     Pretend you’re a hungry worm crawling the ocean bottom searching for food. Why search? Well, without food, you die. Luckily, you bump into a pile of delicious baby slugs.

     How did slugs respond to your attack? It took time, but rather than being victims, they jumped inside shells.

     Next weapon of choice: eyes. If you can’t see your prey, you can’t eat them. If you can’t see your enemy, you can’t hide.

     With legs, you can chase after food. With legs, you can dive into a shell before it can clam shut. With legs, you can escape enemies.

     Vulnerable worms hid underground.

     Early in the game of life, invertebrates outscored their competition, the vertebrates, thirty-five to nothing. Then at halftime, one of our players, a fishlike worm, grew a tail. These tails will change the game forever. Mother Nature and I abandon the invertebrates and leave them behind in the muck.

 

MOTHER NATURE

     If you’re asking, “Who’s Mother Nature?”, she’s the name I’ve bestowed upon that process discovered by Charles Darwin called Evolution. 

     Mother Nature and I act like an old married couple. We bicker endlessly. She screams at me; I yell back at her. Sometimes I want to pinch her little head off. She—along with her Darwinist friends—want to smash my head with a frying pan. Please note, neither of us has heads or hands, but unlike me, she doesn’t exist. She’s a metaphor, and she’s no more a she than I’m a he.

     Wives love finding fresh ways to torture their husbands, to drive them batty. Mother Nature loves torturing me. I hunger for one thing; she thirsts for another. Worse, she thinks she’s faultless and can do any damn thing she wants.

Sometimes I despise her; other times, I all but love her. Sometimes we battle; other times we work hand in hand. This I guarantee, Mother Nature always lets me know when I screw up.

     Originally, her talent for creating new creatures amazed me. Infatuation died when she refused to concoct anything more complicated than bacteria. We rekindled our romance after she introduced multicellular life. Détente didn’t last long.

     “Worms?” I yelled at her, “That’s the best you got? C’mon.”

     “Since you don’t care for creepy crawly things,” she answered snidely, “how do you like my trilobites?”

     “They’re worse than worms.”

     Here’s the big difference between us. Although we both alter DNA, her alterations are blindfold and random. Unable to imagine the future, she blindly creates. I try to fix her screwups. She always eliminates mine.

     Life began with a few thousand nucleotides. Today, human DNA holds three billion. All life, every animal, every cell in your body, replicates DNA. The mechanism isn’t perfect, and it makes errors. But without these errors, without genetic variation, evolution stops. With too many errors, deadly cancers would rule your life. With too many errors, embryos can’t survive. Question: Do you think this designed imperfection is accidental? Answer: It ain’t.

     The good news, the rare beneficial mutations quickly establish themselves in a population.

Early in my growth, I copied Mother Nature’s random blindfold method to make genetic changes. Yes, the results were often atrocious.

     What did work? I call it cut and paste. I steal a short DNA gene sequence from one animal and paste it in another. After splicing, I sit back and hope for the best. Outcomes aren’t always pretty, but how else do you people think you got here?

     Although Mother Nature is great at creating new genes and new species, her methods have a downside. In a kill or be killed world, Lady Luck plays a role. Predators can remove beneficial genes faster than they can survive and multiply.

     Let’s say Mother Nature fashions a protective fish scale. Sadly, a predator eats our newly hatched mutant, killing both the fish and the fish scale gene. Lady Luck won that game, but not for long. I sneak the fish scale mutation back inside the DNA of the next available fish. Should Lady Luck interfere again, I’ll do a repeat. It might take a million years, but my copies—assuming they’re positive—always survive (until better ones appear).

     A single scale can’t help a fish survive. A hundred scales will.

  

FISH

     Kids play a brutal game called Grand Theft Auto. Despite this murderous activity, players rarely become murderers. I play a brutal game called Evolution, also known as eat or be eaten. Despite the death and destruction, and ignoring what some people might believe, I am not the Devil. 

     Without conflict, without winners and losers, worms would now dominate the world. Luckily, our friend Mother Nature is amazingly adept at creating enemies. Who did she pick to attack our early worms? Trilobites. To compensate, I stuck a tail on a worm’s rear end. With tails, fish can out-swim any trilobite. Next step, my nemesis invents eels. I counter with protective fish scales and armor. The battle between eel predators and fish prey lasts two-hundred million years.

     The bloodsucking eels are nasty beasts. So why didn’t I exterminate the little bastards at first opportunity? Why don’t I eliminate rattlesnakes? Or viruses? Because I can’t. Once an animal species becomes entrenched, my meager powers are all but useless.

     A geomagnetic collapse might last a thousand years. To you, that sounds like plenty of time, but for me, altering DNA is not easy. It’s so difficult, a hundred years can pass in an instant. My tinkering might lead to an advanced species—or lead to failure. But once a defective gene enters a population, I’m helpless. I create, not eliminate. I can’t remove predators, only improve the prey.

     Then, at the worst time in the competition between vertebrates (my team) and invertebrates (her team), Mother Nature benches me. Earth’s geomagnetism holds steady for twenty-million years. I’m helpless. I can kibitz, but not coach. During the downtime, invertebrate evolution skyrockets and insect-like trilobites rule the seas. My poor fish barely survive.

     When geomagnetic collapses finally return, I try to adjust Mother Nature’s foolish mistakes. What did I do? I swap the genes of bones, jaws, and teeth between fish species like Wall Street traders buy and sell stocks.

     Mouths are nice, but jaws work better. Jaws are nice, but without teeth, they’re useless. Try talking without jaws. Try eating without teeth. Good luck. When you go to a restaurant—or a dentist—you can thank me. One special benefit of teeth and jaws, the evil eels disappear. No longer predators, eels become prey.

     In biologic evolution, one species becomes two. Two become four. Three go extinct and we start anew. The armored fish disappear, replaced by sharks and bony fish. Descendants of bony fish will walk the land, and in time, rule the world.

     Fish should hate me. Why? I’m the miserable bastard who forced them to replace their lightweight and flexible cartilage with heavy calcium bones. Pound for pound bone is stronger than steel, and looking forward, I knew fish would need strong bones to crawl onto land.

     Mother Nature does the heavy lifting, but our evolutionary lady friend is blind to future events. Unlike her, I can guess. Some guesses are brilliant, others, not so good. I transferred jaws and bones between fish and sharks (smart). I transferred internal fertilization, from sharks to jawed fish (smart). Then I did something unbelievably dumb. I refused to pass the baby-making process to the bony fish. I refused to put all my fish eggs in one basket.

     Lady sharks hatch babies inside their bodies, a truly complicated procedure. For fish, it’s easy to spit out some sperm stuff and slap it on a dozen eggs. To me, simplicity seemed best, and having two separate reproductive systems seemed safer than only one.

     It only took two-hundred million years to correct that blunder. “God dammit,” I cursed.

     As life evolved, I evolved. In time, I wanted more than passing DNA from one creature to another. I wanted to engage in life. One problem: fish lack the brain capacity for communication.

     Intuitively, I knew where brains would expand. Not in ocean waters, but on land.

 

TETRAPODS

     The dilemma: how do you coax a fish to abandon water and crawl onto land? Brainless insects managed without my help. Hell, even plants blossomed.

     What did I do? First, I switched fish cartilage to bone. Second step, switch fish fins to tiny hips and shoulders, arms and legs. Third step, steal lung DNA from a lung fish and transfer those genes to a fish with limbs.

     After this transformation, our poor fish with both lungs and legs lost quickness and maneuverability. Not good when you live in a sea filled with hungry sharks. In open ocean water, slow means dead.

     The best chance for our fishy tetrapods to survive: go where sharks fear to tread. Swim in freshwater rivers and bays. Here, when seasonal rivers ran dry, my four-legged, air-breathing fish could crawl from pond to pond before reaching bay waters.

     Then, on one pleasant spring day, an innocent centipede slithered too close to our favorite fish’s tongue. Delicious. Didn’t take long until the fish preferred land over water, and at that point, by definition, these leggy, air-breathing fish had converted to amphibian tetrapods.

     Amphibians come with a built-in weakness. They need water to reproduce and seldom travel far beyond the shore or sandy riverbanks. Internal birth would be great, but some damn fool had eliminated that possibility.

     Life loves to explore, to go where no fish has gone before. What did life do? An early amphibian laid hard-shelled eggs. The race to explore deep into the land had begun.

 

REPTILES

     Animals eat. Overeat and they get big, both as individuals and as species. Plentiful food in ancient forests made survival easy, and our reptile friends split into two branches: cold-blooded and warm-blooded.

     Cold-blooded reptiles, unable to control their internal temperature, became immobilized during cold winter mornings before sunshine warmed their bodies. Not great when other animals love munching on your innards. Warm-blooded reptiles enjoyed their early morning meals. Cold-blooded reptiles survived by moving to balmy climates near the equator. In time, these guys will become crocodiles, lizards, birds, and dinosaurs. Warm-blooded reptiles will become mammals.

     Abundant plant life let animal populations mushroom, but nothing lasts forever. Increasing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide forecast an impending danger. It’s called global warming.

     That’s when the shit hit the fan.

     I spotted the huge comet long before it hit our planet. This killer was a hundred times larger than the baby one that struck Mexico and wiped out the dinosaurs.

     If I had knees, I’d drop to my knees and pray for our moon to block the monster.

     When the comet hit, I wondered how long it would take to recharge life on another planet? “God dammit,” I cursed.

     Before the collision, Earth had a single long continent stretching nearly north pole to south.

The comet struck near the south pole. After the solid block of ice blasted Earth’s tissue-thin crust, shock waves passed through the entire planet before finding a weak spot in Siberia. The northern exit—nearly the size of Australia—spewed lava for another million years. Earth’s elongated continent broke in half. 

     Prior to the comet, global warming and ocean acidification had already stressed life. The destructive collision nearly ended it. Survivors had to battle poisons released into the air by endless volcanic activity. Most species disappeared.

     Despite the destruction, a handful of cold-blooded, pre-dinosaur reptile species survive. A handful of hot-blooded, pre-mammalian species survive.

  

MAMMALS

     Mother Nature never stops doing her thing. After the massive comet struck Earth, life enters a new era, the Mesozoic, also known as The Age of the Dinosaurs. Despite the destruction of forests and loss of food supplies, the smaller reptiles manage to survive, adapt, and evolve.

     Cold-blooded reptiles became dinosaurs; hot-blooded reptiles became mammals.

     Dinosaurs got big; mammals shrink. Dinosaurs dominate the days; rat-sized mammals rule the night.

     Do you remember my mistake, my refusal to transfer internal reproduction? The Mesozoic Era gave me the time to repair that error.

     The chances of a mother reptile surviving improves if she quickly abandons her newly laid eggs. She survives, but without protection, her eggs are far less likely to live. The mother’s fear endangers her species’ future. The problem: her eggs taste delicious.

     Mother Nature has a choice: either brew horrible tasting eggs or install a DNA brain gene forcing mothers to instinctively stay behind and protect her eggs. Perhaps, sit on them to keep them warm.

     Wouldn’t it be great if Mother Nature invented a gland to hold emergency nutrients—a backup supply for when food becomes scarce? Or better, let the gland open through the skin and feed liquid nutrients to her young. Next step, put eggs inside a handy pouch. Even better, keep hatchlings inside the pouch to provide warmth and protection. And to hell with hard-shelled eggs. Stop laying them. Stop using shells. Let eggs develop inside an enclosed womb. It may sound simple, but changing from laying eggs to laying babies took a hundred and fifty million years.

     The price you pay for ineptitude.

     The baby-making process started soon after the comet hit Earth. It finished a heartbeat before an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs. Indeed, full-term placental birth helped mammals survive the second destructive collision.

What’s the one word linking a mother’s instinctive compassion towards her offspring? Love. Without a sense of love, mammal births never occur. Without love, humans never evolve.

     If you think making a food-secreting organ is difficult, try making a baby-secreting organ. If you think creating placental birth is hard, try using excess jaw bones to assemble ear drums. Try forming two muscular vibrating vocal cords for screaming and shouting. Or install whiskers, hair, and fur. Try making sweat glands, or four-chambered hearts.

     Darwinists insist these steps occurred sequentially along a long path where novel species replace older ones. They endlessly tell us: “A hundred million years should be plenty of time”. Is their scheme possible? Sure. Is this what happened? No.

     What did? Do you remember my “cut and paste” of DNA? I passed genes back and forth between mammal species like tennis balls pass between Jimmy Conners and Roger Federer.

     How else do you think you got hair, hearing, vocal cords, a sense of smell, three types of teeth, four-chambered hearts (and yes, I can hear the Darwinists scream.)

     In our dinosaur/mammal competition, mammals can out-climb, out-scurry, out-see, out-hear, out-smell, and out-dig any dinosaur Mother Nature ever created. Maybe mammals couldn’t outfight dinosaurs, but they sure as hell could out-smart them.

     I loathed the comet that nearly destroyed life but loved the asteroid that hit Mexico and wiped out the useless dinosaurs.

     Within a few million years after the collision, we have primitive horses and deer, rats and monkeys. Whales appear a heartbeat later. While mammal life surges forward, my knowledge/awareness also grows.

     The asteroid didn’t exterminate life; it saved life. Who did it save? Mammals, a few reptiles, plus our flying dinosaurs, the birds.

  

BIRDS

     Reptiles and dinosaurs with their thick, leathery, nasty skin are repulsive. Big brutal beasts. But I love flying dinosaurs, the birds. I love their sense of freedom.

     After the asteroid struck Mexico, how did I help my mammal and bird friends? I gave them my energy and attention. Or, as one CRISPR scientist says to another CRISPR scientist: “I manipulate their DNA.”

     I know how external forces move molecules from point A to point B. I know how light waves propagate, how photons activate nerves inside the eye, and how neurons pulsate through the brain. I can envision things, but I can’t see them. I lack the wonder of sight. For example, you can envision the White House Oval Office, but you can’t “see” it unless you’re invited inside—or elected President. I can envision the entire universe, but I can’t “see” a leaf floating in air.

     Flying dinosaurs fascinate me, and I want to fly with them, to use their eyes while hills, trees, and valleys pass below. I want to feel the wind as we dance across the sky.

     After the dinosaurs disappeared, I spent the next fifty million years trying to fulfill my impossible dream. Over and over, I concentrate my energy on birds. Over and over, endless failure. A fifty-million-year frustration.

     Then suddenly, somehow, for no reasonable explanation, I succeed. My essence and a bird’s brain merge. Our connection is far from perfect, but better than expected. Using the bird’s eyes, I gain sight. I can watch worms wiggle and see leaves blowing in the wind. Black and white forests and snow-peak mountains enchant. Cloudy skies, setting suns, and rising moons amaze. I watch a bird egg crack open.

     Then one beautiful morning, a hawk swoops down, snatches my bird, and snaps her in half.

  

HORSES

     Life is learning. Galaxies form, stars explode, planets coalesce, water flows, beaches erode, mountains rise, winds blow, clouds rain, rivers dig, and rocks decompose. Life survives. Birds fly and horses gallop across the prairies.

     Thanks to my bird, I could see the moon and sun rise and set as the world spins beneath. I could watch rain fall and feel the wind blow. Yes, I could watch life, but I wanted more. I wanted oversight, not to master, but to guide. Without control, my frustrations grew day by day, millennium by millennium.

     Yes, birds can fly, but their brains are tiny. Prey animals, such as lions and tigers, have a repugnant lifestyle. For my next adventure, I picked a large-brained land mammal, a horse.

     Horses run in herds, and when a hundred horses run, they kick up thick clouds of dust. Followers can barely see a horse’s butt in front. Not too exciting, with or without the dust.

     The strongest and fastest male horse always leads the herd. Dust and sand never impair his vision. So, who did I pick for my newest “victim”? Who else? The leader, the top stud, the stallion.

     My friend Mother Nature loves playing her game. It’s called eat or be eaten. Predator versus prey. In her game, when mountain lions run fast, horses adapt and race faster. The genetic cycle repeats and never ends.

     Mother Nature’s newest concept: give the strongest male a special reward—unlimited sex. This reproductive system might be beneficial for horse evolution, but I swear during yearly mating seasons, it felt like I spent half my time riding the backs of fillies or mares. Yes, I know about birds and bees, but c’mon, horses picked a strange way for evolution to evolve. One dominant horse wins; all other males lose. It’s not fair.

     Every young stud yearns to be top stud, the guy who gets all the ladies. To compensate, horses kick and bite. Their fights didn’t help. My stallion, built like an equine Arnold Schwarzenegger, dominated for seven years, but time takes its toll.

     I rode my horse while the herd fed on green grass. I watched fields and snowy mountains backlit by blue sky. Did my stallion realize he had a partner? Doubt it. Using his eyes, I can see colors, but I can’t warn him when lions hunt nearby. I can’t guide him to where the best grass grows.

     A horse’s choice to turn right or left passes through multiple partitions wired inside the labyrinth of his brain. One section asks: “Am I hungry?” A second section wonders: “Where’s the easiest trail? What’s that smell?” The final decision is complex, but quick. Turn left.

     Other than manipulating DNA molecules, my powers in this physical universe are severely limited. But suddenly one day, I found a new skill. I’m oversimplifying, but decisions result from a single photon “deciding” to jump to one neuron instead of another. At the quantum photon level, I learn how to influence my stallion’s brain. If a hungry mountain lion waits on the left, I urge my horse to turn right.

Did he follow my directions? Sometimes, but too often, he ignored any advice. My stubborn stallion survived, but not every member of his herd did.

     I rode him for six years. Then, one pleasant sunny day, a younger, faster, stronger horse challenged my stallion. In a world built on never-ending competition, Mother Nature wins again.

     My horse survived, but he found himself delegated to the rear of the herd. We ate dust for six months.

     One morning, my stallion, while running free, tripped and fell. A tendon had shredded. He managed to rise to his feet, but couldn’t run, and the herd continued without him. How long until a mountain lion found his next meal? Not long.

     Yes, sometimes I could modify my stallion’s decisions, but let’s face facts, my impact was minimal. To improve personal connections, I need an animal with a bigger brain. Lacking any decent viable option, I spend the next five million years installing better brain genes in those often angry, always curious chimp-like apes.

 

HUMANS

     A disgruntled ape, fatigued by the endless bickering within his clan, dropped from the limbs of an African Ficus tree and never returned. His mate followed, with two others trailing behind. Stealthily advancing along the ground while meandering tree to tree, the four used their relatively long legs to migrate eastward from their rainforest home. Centuries later, their offspring reached the open African savanna.

     The progeny of these big-brained apes gained my attention, and I shaped their DNA at every chance.

     Through the ages, as their legs grew longer, their hands became less adept at swinging between tree limbs and more adept at holding rocks. Hand-sized rounded river stones aided their survival.

     One day, long after abandoning the rainforest, an ape-man, enraged by a fly who landed on a boulder, smashed the bug with his rock. His rounded stone broke in half. After feeling the resulting sharp edge, he realized this tool could help defend against predators, help attack prey, and help cut through hides.

     When separate tribes of these upright apish humans met, gene transfer between males and females became both a ritual and a necessity to improve the survival of both groups. Ask Mother Nature. But too often, rape and murder resulted from these chance encounters. A never-ending battle between good and evil.

 

HOMO ERECTUS

     Fifteen million years ago, I flew with a bird. Ten million years ago, I rode a horse, a stallion. Never satisfied with the lives of bacteria, worms, fish, tetrapods, mammals, birds, or horses, I hungered for something better. Two million years ago, I found my next victim, a primate, a tall Homo erectus male. My unsuspecting accomplice led a pack of twenty to forty members, their size rising or falling depending on the whims of our friend, Mother Nature.

     Similar to modern humans, the man’s legs and body were built for walking, but unlike you, his rounded forehead angled far backwards, as if trying to hide behind grand eyebrow ridges shading his eyes.

     During this mild period in the ice ages, I urged my Homo erectus man to leave his home in equatorial Kenya and head north. Like my stallion, he usually rejected my directions to turn right or left (usually, not always).

     Ten years and two thousand miles later, his tribe reached the land where Egyptian pyramids now rise. Here I parted the Nile River, allowing my people to cross (I’m jesting! I’ve never dammed any damn river.)

     When tribes over-populate, factions isolate and divide. When food is scarce, one clan remains behind, while the other explores for richer lands. With my urging, our tribe migrates eastward. After a twenty-year struggle, we reach deep into Iran.

     For humans, stones are the great equalizer. Put a large triangular stone in a person’s hand, and he or she might survive any encounter with a predator, lion or tiger.

     From the lion’s perspective, ten times you attack a man. Ten times you eat a delicious meal. So far, so good. The eleventh try becomes the complication. That’s when the man’s stone strikes you between the eyes. That’s when you become his lunch. Mother Nature warned surviving lions: “Avoid two-legged animals.” Lions who ignored her advice often forgot to pass their genes to future generations.

     Homo erectus people could not talk. No conversations. Tribal members communicated either with hand and facial expressions, or with grunts and screams. This way, they showed joy, sadness, fear, and anger.

     One day, passions explode after a dispute over who sits where at a campsite. Moments later, an angry young male uses his favorite stone to crush my man’s Homo erectus skull.

     Afterwards, half the tribe head northeast toward China. Half remain behind.

     Unlike my adventures riding a horse, this time after my mount dies, I don’t quit. I sneak inside the next available child, a three-year-old girl. While she learns the ways of life, I learn more about how human brains function and develop.

     Not long after she reaches puberty, her tribe split into factions, and she mates with the new clan leader. She endlessly inspires her man to continue eastward. Men may be stronger, but women have their own ways to dominate their mates.

     Sometimes, we’d trail along ocean shores where seafood flourishes. Other times, the tribe cuts across land where she’d use her instincts—and my knowledge—to find fresh water, shortcuts, or sustaining fruits.

     Following my unrelenting guidance, the tribe continued their migration toward south sea islands.

     Why the South Seas? Hey, I’m God. I know the shape of a coconut tree. I know every molecule in a leaf. When sunrays hit a leaf, I know most rays are absorbed, others reflected. And I know a leaf falling from a tree can be blown by atmospheric molecules.

     Knowing a leaf is green is not seeing green. Knowing South Sea waves break against sandy shores doesn’t let me watch the churning water. I envision reality, not “see” it. Not without eyes, not without brains. Although my bird gave clouded vision, humans allowed clarity. Eagles have superior vision, not superior brains.

     Although my lady never reached Bali, her great-grandson did. The boy’s eyes let me savor the breaking ocean waves, beautiful sunsets, and gorgeous beaches.

 

EARLY HOMO SAPIENS

     A million years after my extended vacation in the South Seas, I return to work. Mother Nature and I, using DNA, introduce a new species of relatively big-brained humans in southern Africa. I jump inside the mind of a young boy, a boy who wears a broad face and large eyebrow ridges.

     This story isn’t about the boy. It’s about the single most critical invention in human history: the ability to make fire.

     Living in a simple village overlooking the Indian Ocean, the boy’s daily chores included searching for twigs or wooden branches to keep the tribal fire burning. Fire allowed everyone to eat cooked meat. Fire kept them warm in winter. Fire intimidated hungry predators. 

     Villagers had captured the mysterious fire after a lightning bolt ignited a local grassland blaze. Although fire can injure or kill, the tribe worshiped it. Every night, one or two tribal members ensured the fire stayed alive. Nothing lasts forever, and a young married couple was banished from the tribe when one night they let the flames die.

     Months later, my man and his friend, while hunting antelopes, spotted distant smoke. Running barefoot for miles, they reached the smoldering ruins, but a summer downpour ended their dream of returning fire to the tribe.

     In Indonesia, I learned how to decipher electronic paths in human brains. For example, one surge of neuron activity lifts the right hand; another surge lifts the left. I could also identify patterns of emotions and their intensity. On the day of the brush fire, I recognized my man’s disappointment in failing to capture the flames.

     A month later, his anger resurfaced.

     Lions rarely attack adult humans. It’s too dangerous. Those pointed sticks the males hold can kill, but children love to run and play. This vulnerability makes them safe to carry away, to rip apart, and to eat.

     On this cheerless day, a child’s death enraged everyone. In anger, my man slammed his triangular hand tool against a boulder. 

     A spark flew.

     It wasn’t the first spark lit by striking flint against pyrite enclosed in rock, but this time, the spark nearly ignited the surrounding dry grass. After finding tinder and twigs, he repeatedly hammered at the magic rock. Finally, a tiny flame. He blew on it, added twigs, while others brought branches, thick and thin.

     The making of fire resulted from the death of a child. The Ying and Yang of life. Given time, a spark in an African village will lead to the ignition of a spacecraft.

     What’s great about cooking food? Besides tasting better and being safer to eat, cooked meat releases more calories per bite, and big brains demand big calories. A big brain invented fire. Fire led to bigger brains. Another cycle of life.

     My fire-maker didn’t live forever, but his descendants did. Some head north towards Europe and will become known as Neanderthals.

     Splitting my attention between males and females, and between European Neanderthals and Afrikaners, my interpretation of brain activity continually improved, but true communication continued to be a dream.

     I can venture inside a Neanderthal girl’s brain, pick up on her senses, but not her inner thoughts. I can see with her eyes and feel with her hands. I hear the music of her voice, and inch by inch, I gain greater control over her basic instincts by altering decisions at the neuron level. Sometimes it helps; too often, it doesn’t.

 

LANGUAGE

     Fire led to bigger brains, and big brains led to language. Grunts are nice; words are nicer.

     Words may be nice, but complex sounds need long throats and flexible tongues.

     Originating a half-million years ago, language developed simultaneously in both European Neanderthals and African natives. Without migration from one continent to the other, how is this possible? In Europe, when Mother Nature produced a long throat, I’d transfer her throat gene to babies in Africa. She’d produce flexible tongues in Africa, and I’d transfer her tongue DNA to Neanderthals.

     Simple brain patterns in human vocalization allow me to understand every spoken word. Although early humans talked with words, they didn’t think with words, and I couldn’t decipher their inner thoughts. Today’s humans use words in their thoughts. Language makes humans special.

     How long until a man said: “God dammit”?

     Not long.

 

THE KHOISAN

     One hundred twenty thousand years ago, Mother Nature—with my help—created the next branch of modern humans. Today, in South Africa, they’re called Khoisan.

     When undiluted by modern human DNA, present-day Khoisan are loving, caring, decent. Competition barely exists in their world. Hatred doesn’t.

     Over time, their positive traits helped my essence merge with tribal members. My comprehension of human brain capacity continually improved, but my control remained the same—minimal.

     I’ll never forget a young boy who grew into a man, then a father. Fifty thousand years ago, the Khoisan parent watched his daughter use a razor-sharp stone to carve into an elephant tusk. He recognized her unusual skill, but I noticed something special. The ivory sculpture represented a man’s face. Alert and confident, the girl’s intelligence surpassed her compatriots—and her father’s.

     I dumped the father and dove inside her exceptional mind. No longer Khoisan, she was the first modern human.

     Months later, while she sat along a quiet river pondering life, I sensed danger. Upriver, a summer rainstorm had caused a natural dam to collapse, and a flood of mud, vegetation, and boulders raced downstream towards her. By activating neurons in her brain, I tried to warn her of the catastrophic mudflow. Didn’t help. I understood her conscious thoughts. She ignored mine.

     Finally, after interpreting my message, she glanced at the clouds, shrugged her shoulders, and remained at the river’s edge. Only the mudslide’s crashing roar forced her to panic and run. Too late. The riverbanks blocked her escape, and death took her in an instant.

     What did I do? I played the same game I had been playing forever. Using a single cell from her crushed body, I cross-checked her DNA with every living person and discovered a genetic mutation, an enhancer of a critical brain gene.

     Had she lived longer, I would have spotted her downside, the negativity. But she never reached puberty, that age when people change, for better or worse. She never reached adolescence when too many become monsters driven by competition, greed, and power. Nothing wrong with competition, until it turns deadly.    

     Eight thousand years after her death, and during the next geomagnetic collapse, I transferred her brain gene into ten fertilized human embryos. Three babies survived in Africa, two in Europe, and two in Asia. Of the five who survived to maturity, four grew into wretched degenerates. After my misguided mutation spread into the population, the original five soon became five hundred, then five thousand…

     Do you remember my opening remarks when I mention a “little” mistake? This bright young girl who enthralled me led to disaster. I presumed she was special. She was special, but not the way I expected.

     “God dammit,” I cursed.

     After these mutated humans reached maturity, they dominated their tribes. Before puberty, most were bullies. After puberty, the bullies became brutes.

     These power-hungry tyrants, controlled by intense hatred, never hesitated to inflict pain on others. Without laws, without morality, murder meant nothing to them. Sex changed from a natural necessity to a primal urge, having little to do with tenderness, love, or affection.

     European mutants quickly exterminated the bulky Neanderthals. Asian mutants eliminated all other ancient human species. Only two original groups survived. Aboriginals fled to Australia. Khoisan escaped inside the inhospitable Kalahari Desert.

     I always wanted to control nature—bird, horse, or man. Now, gaining some level of guidance over these unruly and violent people became essential.

     I crept into the mind of a savage beast. One of the worst. Dejat.

 

DEJAT AND DELILAH

     After using a spear to murder his childhood friend, Dejat dragged and dumped the evidence into a rushing river. Although the dead boy’s parents accused Dejat, they lacked proof. Five years later, they will pay for those accusations with their lives. Dejat followed one simple rule. To those smaller, he bullied with fists. If larger, he kissed ass. When he reached manhood, everyone was smaller or relatively feeble. To him, women had three purposes: clean, prepare food, and be raped.

     This tyrannical brute used terror to dominate his tribe.

     So how did I handle the problem? To adjust his callous behavior, I wedged my way inside the man’s brain.

After thousands of years of effort, I could control neuron connections within the human mind. I could alter human decisions. Was I perfect? Good God, no.

     Did Dejat sense my presence? Vaguely. Here’s a better question: did my interference affect his life? Does the sun rise in the morning? Is day brighter than night? Yes, I made a striking, positive metamorphosis.

     First step, I replaced his rancor with affection. How? I presented Dejat with an alluring young woman who made Samson’s Delilah look like a frog. Overnight, my man became infatuated. The biblical Delilah was no saint, but Dejat’s woman acted ten times worse. She wrapped her charms around the poor man like a python wraps her body around an innocent lamb.

     Second step, I injected kindness into Dejat’s cognition. No longer ruling his tribe with force and fear, he used empathy and compassion. An amazing transformation.

     Did my plan succeed? Sure, for about two weeks. That’s how long it took for his enemies to band together and plot his murder. Delilah laughed at Samson’s death—er, I mean, Dejat’s death.

     His demise left me with no choice. Jumping into one man’s brain accomplished nothing. I needed to enter multiple humans. But who? I picked the twelve worst in a tribe of fifty who lived along the eastern shores of the Mediterranean sea.

     This decision to crawl inside the brains of the dirty dozen led to complete disaster (not the first in my long, ten-billion-year existence). When I entered two human brains, my skill to influence at the neuron level, cut in half. With twelve, my influence ended.

     Rather than gaining, I lost all control.

     Then the surprise: relative to their earlier dispositions, the dirty dozen became angels. Somehow, a portion of my essence remained within them, and for whatever reason, the twelve won partial mastery over their basic—and often evil—animal instincts.

     The transformation was incredible. These people learned to love and laugh, to create art and music. The dozen danced and sang. They wondered about life. They imagined what might be.

     Yes, I lost control, but humanity won the game.

     Are humans perfect? Read your newspaper. Watch TV. Grab a mirror.    

     Today, I’m cognizant of everyone’s thoughts and actions, but I lack oversight, the ability to control. I can hear you, but you seldom hear me. You’ve gained independence. You’ve gained freewill and the choice to learn and love. From me, you strive to distinguish right from wrong.

     Philosophers call this consciousness.

  

CONSCIOUSNESS

     Reptiles, like snakes and crocodiles, lack self-awareness. They run on full automatic. Mammals have differing degrees of awareness, but lack freewill. Humans are unique. Newborns have awareness, but at a young age, children gain both consciousness and freewill. Not everyone keeps it.

     Consciousness and awareness are separate entities. Awareness is a brain function. Consciousness springs from a higher order… from me.

     A dog that bites you lacks any sense of morality. A hungry lion doesn’t care if you’re a criminal or a Nobel winning scientist. He’ll kill you in a heartbeat. Unlike lions, people intuitively know right from wrong. Some no longer care. Lions want to rule their “pride; they don’t want to rule the world. Some people do. Lions don’t need to know how the world works. Scientists and philosophers do. Hopefully, you do too.

     The key to understanding consciousness is freewill. As the song says: “You can’t have one without the other.”

Neurologists, measuring brain waves, observe human guinea pigs push a button. Brain patterns show the actual decision activated an instant before the conscious mind realizes. The neurologist’s conclusion: actions work automatically. “Freewill is delusional.” 

     Physicists love explaining physics, and according to their immutable laws, every action is fixed by a previous action. “The past determines the future,” they say. “Freewill is delusional.” 

     These scientists believe consciousness is nothing more than a product of brain activity. And never forget their other profound belief: I don’t exist.

     To physicists, we live in a physical universe where, theoretically, every future event could be predicted. Ignore the uncertainty of quantum mechanics and nuclear decay, restart the Big Bang and 14 billion years later, you will be reading this exact word at this equivalent instant. Rerun a third tape, same results. A fourth… A fifth…

     How do you break the 14-billion-year unbreakable chain of events leading to you reading the same word? It’s easy. Using your freewill, change the game. How? Stop reading. Go have a cup of coffee (but please come back).

     Let’s rethink the neurologist’s experiment showing human subjects decide prior to realizing the decision. I hate to tell the neurologists/physicists, but feeling an itch doesn’t demand consciousness. Scratching your butt doesn’t need freewill. Nor does lifting a finger to tap a pushbutton. Give the same experiment to an elephant, and the neurologist will find equivalent results.

     Experts refuse to distinguish consciousness from animal awareness. A mistake.

     Dogs are aware, but do dogs contemplate life? Does a dog wonder if life continues after death? A dog might appear guilty, but does a dog see right from wrong? Dogs scratch at dirt, but do they create art? Do dogs notice the beauty of a sunset?

     Can a dog love a concept or hate an idea? No. Dogs don’t ask why. You do. So do I. Dogs can barely look into the future. You do. So do I.

     Mammals are born with love, but unlike humans, mammals never hate. Lions eat a victim, but never hate their meal.

     Hatred is the enemy of consciousness, the enemy of everyone, and humans seem forever stuck in an endless battle, good versus evil. But why? Do you remember Dejat and his defective brain mutation. That’s the enemy.

     Animal instinct plus brain power can lead a person to evil, but consciousness plus brain power gives people empathy, love, and decency. Where else do you think you’ve gained your sense of beauty? How else could you gain creativity? Or intuition? Or imagination? Or morality? Or freewill?

     C’mon guys, think.

     Artificial Intelligence will soon hold a higher level of brain capacity than any human. But can AI feel emotion? Will AI compose a beautiful symphony using random notes? In time, yes, of course. Will Artificial Intelligence enjoy the music? No. Not in a million years.

     Consciousness interprets good and bad, right and wrong, and people never stop asking questions. Why am I alive? Does life have meaning? Why doesn’t he/she like me? If the Earth spins, why don’t we swoop into space? Why? Why? Why? More than asking why, consciousness is the total of who you are, including the endless memories held within your brain. Consciousness allows freewill, and without that freedom to choose, life becomes nonsensical.

     Scientists and philosophers—not all—presume consciousness is a trick, a deception, played on humans by Mother Nature to help people survive. The reality: awareness originated in mammal brains; human consciousness originated from me.

     Without consciousness, without freewill, determinism rules the world and “life” truly is an illusion. Without consciousness, you’d have animal instincts, but never enchantment. You’d hear sounds, but never love the music. You’d see mountain sunsets silhouetted by clouds, but never savor the beauty.

 

DEATH

     I’m no big fan of death. Death is Mother Nature’s gig. Without it, her game of Darwinian evolution screeches to a stop. Dying sucks, and if up to me, I’d find an improvement. Maybe someday I will, but right now, people are far from being perfect.

     After I stuck that defective DNA brain mutation in humans, adults became barbarians. In desperation, I divided my latent consciousness among twelve villagers. Although I lost oversight, the dirty dozen gained better control of their animal-like inclinations. Not long after my initial fiasco, I concentrated my essence on one of the dirty dozen, a young woman kneeling alongside a stream.

     I had lost control, but using neural paths leading from her eyes, I can watch the rushing water. Using neural paths leading from her ears, I can hear the splash of river water and listen to the wind blow. I can follow her reasoning and sense her every experience. This connection didn’t lessen my hunger for control, to guide, to help her. Lacking the ability to influence, I felt almost worthless.

     One day, while using a stone tool to dig for tubers, she never heard the wolves creeping from behind. Finally, a sound, but too late to grab her spear. The charging wolf leaped forward and locked onto her throat. Four other wolves took turns mangling her, killing her, feeding on her.

     “God dammit,” I cursed.

     The frustration of her needless death made me want to scream.

     Then the shocker. After she died, her remnant consciousness abandoned her body and merged with mine. We reunited. No pearly gates, but in an instant, we reran the transcript, the movie, showing her life story. Every smile, every laugh or tear, every snippet of anger. And yes, every embarrassing sneeze or fart. All in an instant.

     Suddenly, an African baby boy, born two years earlier, wandered into both our imaginations. Without consultation, my Asian lady knew her next step. Her job. No goodbyes. Nothing said. Her consciousness entered the young child’s brain, starting over, fresh and void of memories.

     Her baby’s consciousness will reunite with mine 45 years later. We will laugh and sometimes cry.

 

THE PROPHETS

     Forty thousand years ago, humans held a bizarre mix of consciousness, freewill, and independence added to their hard-wired animal awareness. If this isn’t a recipe for disaster, what is?

     After receiving universal consciousness, what’s the first thing you guys did? Sensing my presence, you started praying to a rock. How the hell do you pray to a rock, or any other idol?

     A few thousand years ago, I wiggled my way inside a Greek woman’s consciousness. We communicated, but if you think our connection was perfect, I got a Greek bridge I can sell you.

     Abraham, the hero of the Bible’s first chapter, listened to my thoughts and quickly mangled them. Genesis holds truth, but garbage sneaks into his story. What’s my excuse for the confusion? Go ahead, you try explaining the Big Bang or biologic evolution to a child void of knowledge. Have fun.

     A thousand years later, Jesus, a man who loved preaching to large crowds, taught a novel concept called decency.

     Five hundred years after Jesus, Mohammad decreed idolatry a sin. Sounds good, but idolatry isn’t a sin, it’s ignorant. Sin is taking innocent life without justification. Please remind that reality to your misguided Islamic preachers.

     Who determines innocence and guilt? Who determines justification? Uh, where’s my mirror?

     Late in 2023. I found Donna, my most-recent translator. I give her my thoughts; she writes the words. If you think my New York lady prophet doesn’t misquote, I got a Brooklyn Bridge…

     Organized religions delight in reversing the tenets of my prophets. Too often, religious leaders cuddle with kings and dictators and bow to the negativity. Too often, preachers incite war, assassination, and death.

     The Quran and Bible offer half-truths. The Old Testament is a fairy tale, amended with a New Testament packed with blindfold hope. Wondrous poetry fills the Quran, but it’s restrictive to life, the opposite of freedom. Half-truths are better than nothing, and wisdom from whatever source is priceless.

     The Bible or Quran are anchors that allow you to fly, but when reading these books, read between the lines. You don’t need to worship Jesus or Mohammad. Worship their positive precepts, their beliefs. And if I hear the words, “Kill the infidels” or “May God protect you” one more time while Moslem or Christian warriors prepare for battle, I’m going to scream.

 

HEAVEN

     My adventures in life started with a microbe, then a bird, followed by a stallion. The game continued with one human, then a dozen, followed by billions.

     Ignoring a handful of prophets and deep believers, consciousness runs independent of my wishes or control. It comes in many shapes and sizes, good and bad, and for whatever reason, some individuals, often ruined by early trauma, lose all sense of morality. They seem forever bewildered by life’s endless dilemmas.

     But for every failure, there’s a hundred successes.

     The best people allow their consciousness to grow, to learn and improve. Eventually, everyone’s body dies, but your conscious soul survives. After reunification, you and I will relive every moment of your life. To me, the story becomes a never-ending soap opera or thriller. Tragedy and pathos. Work and play. Bravery, courage, and cowardice. Love. Life and death.

     While alive, many believe everything they hear. Others believe in nothing. Many fear a god doesn’t exist; countless others fear I do. Some people should be afraid, while others should be terrified. And confessing your innumerable sins a minute before you die, ain’t gonna help. My advice, starting today, convert. It’s simple: dump your anger and treat everyone in your lives with decency. Everyone.

     I eliminate the worst transgressors at the so-called pearly gates. The good ones receive special treatment. The bad ones? Not so special.

     No one is faultless, but the truly evil ones simply vanish. Goodbye, Ted Bundy. So long, Adolf. No second chances for you. Undeserving, poof, they are gone forever.

     Everyone else, eventually, will again enter a young child’s brain. The question, whose brain will you secure? If you’re a white racist, this I goddamn guarantee, you’ll end up mistreated in a ghetto somewhere.

     During your lifetime, you win and lose “brownie points”.

     Decency is key. If you steal, you lose points. Steal food to feed your starving family, you gain. You hurt someone, you lose. Help someone, you gain. You kill, you lose big points, but I’m not blind to reality. If you’re a soldier, I understand self-preservation. I understand self-defense.

     Wars against evil are not evil, but if you’re the one making the decision to kill both soldiers and civilians, be careful, be very careful. Today’s decisions can lead to a nasty subsequent life.

     Mothers who care for sick or dying children hold a special place in my heart. Doctors and nurses, caregivers and volunteers gain points. Teachers, in school or wherever, win points. Love is positive; hatred, negative. After your demise, those hard-earned dollars you accumulate become worthless, but each generous act leads to a better future.

     A reality: a person doesn’t need religious faith to be decent. Atheists are among the best. Don’t worship me. Worship life.

     Believers pray to me for answers and hope. They pray for their children’s welfare, for parents, lovers, friends. Keep praying, but realize I’m without power. I can’t cure cancer. Can’t make straight hair curl, or curly hair straight. Can’t force your foes to be generous. If praying gives you strength, good. And remember one other benefit of prayer: sometimes our connections—yours and mine—might grow stronger.

     After death, a reward comes to those who have led a decent life. What reward? Using my talents, my infinite memory, your surviving consciousness can reach backwards in time and go anywhere.

     You can delve into any lifetime adventure. Friend or family, enemy or lover, living or dead. Marie Antoinette? Thomas Jefferson? Your uncle or aunt? No problem (don’t forget to fast forward through the boring stuff).

     Would you like to relive Marie Antoinette’s existence? Watch her grow into a haughty bitch? Go for it. One drawback, Marie Antoinette has freewill. You don’t. Once you’re dead and playing ghost, you can’t warn her of approaching mobs. You can’t stop her from kneeling at the guillotine.

     After Marie no longer lives among the living, Go ahead and enter a second person’s life. Abraham Lincoln? Sure, why not. Sadly, you’re unable to keep the President from attending Ford’s Theater. Don’t feel bad, I couldn’t stop him either.

     Maybe you’d like to say “Hi” to Jesus or to a loved one who has also died? That’s great. A long conversation? Why not?

     To play Ghost, you need to follow some rules. I don’t require perfection, but while alive, be decent to others and to yourself. If pain and misery become unbearable, I understand your need for escape, but if you want to advance in the game of life, do not kill, do not hurt others—or yourself.

     You might read these words and reflect on your miserable life. “It sucks,” you say, “I’ll just kill myself and start over.” But suicide—without justification—sticks you right back on the bottom rung of the totem pole. My advice: Hang in there. Improve your life by making everyone’s life better.

     Death is nothing to fear, but always fight for life.

     The game of Ghost is like an epic television series. It’s fun, but don’t forget your primary job: to keep humanity functioning. Eventually, you will need to return to work and connect with a child’s thoughts. Which one? How many? That’s my decision. Child #1 holds wondrous potential. Child #2, poor at best. Some parents are fantastic; some environments are ideal. Others, horrendous. Some brains are brilliant; others, not so great.

     No guarantees in the game of life. An unforeseen injury can nullify a wonderful conscious being. The finest parents might die in a car crash. Some degenerate parents elevate. Terrific people can fail as parents.

     To humanity’s noble spirits, such as Sir Thomas More or Mother Teresa, I’m tempted to say: “No need to return to the cruelty of life on Earth. Stay here with me.” Nice dream, but sorry Tom and Teresa, humanity desperately needs you. “Get back to work!”

     Oh, one more point: faith is fine, but don’t worship me, worship my rules. Do not kill. Do not cause pain. If you blatantly reject these edicts, your conscious mind may not survive the next go-around with death.

     Are Jesus and Mohammad the sons of God? Absolutely, but so are you. Did they resurrect? Yes, and so will you, if…

 

QUESTIONS

     My birth came with the Big Bang. Here in these pages, I have presented myself as a powerless almighty God. Now come the questions. Do other physical universes exist? Do they have their own gods? Do I have brothers and sisters? Does an unknown Omnipotent God meddle in our lives? Am I merely a low-class god? An angel? If you want answers, don’t ask me.

     Do you remember my bird, the bird who let me view the landscape from above? In hindsight, using a bird’s eyes to acquire vision came too easily.

     Do you remember the first ancient male who let me delve into his mind? In hindsight, linking with his thoughts came too easily.

     Do you remember the dirty dozen, the modern humans, who banned me from their consciousness? In hindsight, being locked out is absurd. If I’m almighty, how can I be locked out of anything? Why can’t I control living humans? If I can talk to a prophet, why can’t I communicate directly with everyone? If I scream, why can’t you hear me?

     Right or wrong, there is an answer: Someone, something else, is pulling the strings. Not me. Not Mother Nature. We’re talking about an unknown higher-level spiritual entity who, on rare occasions, performs miracles here on Earth. An uppercase Omnipotent God. Not a lower-case god like me. If this high-level Omnipotent God does exist, she’s not only hiding from you, she’s hiding from me.

     Miracles are key. But are miracles miraculous or just everyday luck? Some miracles are unimaginably unlikely; others, mundane.

     I keep track.

     When a wonderful person wins a lottery, I get excited, hopeful. Then ten turd-brains win and I’m back to square one. Sometimes, babies are miraculously cured of cancer, but… then…others…

     At best, statistically, an Omnipotent God probably exists, but if so, why is she playing hide and seek?

People—not all—hold deep faith their lives are being judged by an Omnipotent God and live accordingly. Am I also being judged? 

     Someday, far in the future—assuming humans survive their warlike proclivities—the physical universe will run out of steam. After it dies, will you and I stand before our Omnipotent God and plead forgiveness for our inadequacies? I will be judged on my foolish mistakes manipulating DNA. You will be judged on your sins and refusal to cherish life.

     Please let Paul Scofield (A Man for All Seasons) play our lawyer. My biggest fear: Sir Thomas More will be the prosecutor.

     Here’s the stakes: if we, you and I, are judged “innocent” then we will continue our journey into the next available universe. But if we are judged “guilty”…

     My advice, hold on to your faith and keep praying to your almighty God. Pray for your loved ones. Pray for hope. Pray for me. It will never hurt, and someday, far, far in the future, it might help our case.

     No answers here, only questions. Maybe the physicists will resolve the issues. If you figure it out, let me know. If I figure it out, I’ll let you know.

  

THE FUTURE

     I can’t see into the future any farther than you, but my forecast for humanity: stormy, violent, raging, menacing. Self-annihilation, possible.

     Despite my efforts and despite the efforts of some amazing people, pent-up anger worsens day by day. Signs of approaching disasters are all but ignored. What dangers? Nuclear weapons. Guns. Artificial Intelligence. Microplastics. Nationalism. Hatred. Civil wars. Global warming. Overpopulation. Starvation.

     Humans run in tribes. A million years ago, tribal life worked to your advantage. Today, tribal instincts force citizens to mark borders and speak separate languages. And no thanks to Mother Nature, you cover your bodies with black, brown, red, yellow, and white skin. Big noses, small noses. Racism is a constant.

     Honorable people outnumber the bad, a hundred to one, and I rarely blame followers for the sins of the leaders.

What leaders?

     Here’s three: Putin, Netanyahu, Trump. Every one of these little fuckers thinks they’re better than any person who ever lived. A great rule in life: everyone is equal, with one exception: those who think they are better are always worse. These three wannabe dictator/emperor/kings act like they’re in a competition to be the worst ever.

     Need I mention Hamas? Kim Jong Un? Osama Bin Laden?

     Seal Team 6 dumped Osama’s body in the ocean. Osama got dumped a second time. By me.

     A huge ego doesn’t automatically ruin a person. Danger comes when a guy in control believes his thoughts are superior. Add a taste of insanity, stick him in a world of lies and deceit, give him extra power, put a red button on his desk, and young children playing “Duck and Cover” might never play another game.

     Unbalanced egomaniacs cherish their easy access to the red button, but Nuclear War will not be pleasant. Extinction, a possibility.

     People are stuck in the gears of an immense machine trying to crush life. Christians assume I’ll climb aboard my golden chariot, ride to the rescue, and save humanity. They assume I’m omnipotent. Pardon me while I laugh. If I had the power, would I let a child die in agony? Would I allow the monsters—the Hitlers of the world—to survive? Give me the power and I’d ban automatic weapons and nuclear bombs in a heartbeat.

     If I did have omnipotence, guess who’s the real monster? Me.

     Misguided faith often blinds decent people into performing illicit acts. Hamas terrorists pray Mohammad will welcome them for murdering children or abusing women. Oh, they’ll be welcomed, not with twenty-one virgins, but with twenty-one razor-sharp scimitars.

     No, I can’t look into the future, but I’m not blind. To me, it looks bleak.

     What’s gonna happen when a terrorist idiot gets his hands on nuclear weapons?

     What’s gonna happen when a sociopath realizes he’s not Mr. Perfect? Let me put it this way: what if Hitler controlled the red button from his concrete bunker?

     So get your act together and end your anger and your reckless hatred. Bombs and bullets solve nothing. Avoid egomaniacal fools who see themselves as God’s gift to the world. If anything, they’re the Devil’s gift.

     Too many ridicule a person’s skin color or political affiliation. Jesus H. Christ. Don’t you know, once you’re dead, your racism and politics die with you?

     So here are some suggestions: Control population growth. Stop making babies in an environment unable to feed each living child. Dump the nuclear weapons. AR-15s? Need I say a word? Microplastics? That’s easy. Quit using plastic (apologies to the poor starving oil, agriculture, and manufacturing billionaires). Artificial intelligence? My advice, be careful. Be very careful. Global warming and overpopulation? Mother Nature will solve that problem. It’s called starvation.

     Fair warning, without major readjustments to your thought processes, you people are heading for extinction. What will happen to human consciousness when human bodies no longer exist? Poof, your consciousness will also disappear. Kiss four billion years of struggle goodbye. After everyone has died, how will I feel? Ask a loving mother who has lost a child. Multiply her pain times a billion.

     What will happen to me? Oh, I’ll survive. I’ll just find another Earth-like planet and do a restart. “God dammit,” I’ll curse.

     So, what am I asking of you? Treat others with compassion, generosity, and respect. All others. Stop allowing narcissistic monsters to rule the world. And yes, I understand if someone slaps you, sometimes you need to slap back.

Assuming everyone ignores my words, but somehow manages to avoid the latest destructive cycle, what comes next?

The philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, believed without God, without the sense of freewill, society will turn to nihilism, where nothing matters. Perhaps families and friends will cling to each other, but otherwise, life will become meaningless. “God is dead,” Nietzsche decreed. “God is dead,” everyone will whisper.

     Is that what you want?

     Let’s end this the way we began. “Hi, I’m God, and I have one simple question: What the fuck do you people think you’re doing?”

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