Month: October 2020

IS GOD SELF-AWARE?

/ Ken Finton / Leave a comment

by Kenneth Harper Finton ©2020

About 1,500 galaxies are visible in this deep view of the universe, taken by allowing the Hubble Space Telescope to stare at the same tiny patch of sky for 10 consecutive days in 1995. The image covers an area of sky only about the width of a dime viewed from 75 feet away.

“Who knows what is in the mind of God?”

People will tell us that “God knows all.

”The common conception of God is that of a divine being

that creates and governs the universe.

If God knows what everyone is thinking,

knows where everyone has been,

and knows what they all will be,

what a huge amount of information that would be.

We also must realize that the Earth

is a small speck of dust in a commonplace galaxy.

There are trillions of stars and billions of galaxies.

Try to imagine a mind that knows all this.What would it be like?

One thing is certain. It would not be like the human mind.

It would be more like universal consciousness.

But would God even have a self?

Is God self-aware?

What need would God have for self-awareness?

Self-awareness is a curse and a blessing.

It creates loneliness.

It creates unhappiness.

If God were self-aware, God would be lonely.

Does God get lonely?

The self can only be aware of its self by knowing

that something from the outside is not the self.

If God is everything, then what would exist outside God

for God to be self-aware?

If God isn’t everything then what is this thing outside

that is not God?

God does not need a brain.

If God is everything, then God is a brain.

An observer does not need to be self-aware.

A mouse observes the cheese with no sense of self.

The world existed before self-awareness.

So, as far as we can tell (and surely we know little),

the universe has only had self-awareness

for a minute fraction of an eternal epoch.

The universe has gotten along quite well

for billions of years without self-awareness.

Do we live in a fraction of an eon when the mud

stands up and sees that there are others?

Does that matter at all to the mind of God

that has no self and no need for a self?

After all, if God were present before anything existed,

then God will be present when everything has passed away.

19 October 2020, Arvada, Colorado

LISTEN TO ‘WHO OWNS THE SUN” AT BELOW LINK

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm…

HARMONY, THE SPY, AND HER PET, CHILLY

/ Ken Finton / Leave a comment

Written by Sky Felker, Age 10; illustrations by Sky

It was a dark and stormy night when suddenly the phone rang at Harmony’s. Harmony is a smart girl with brown hair. She is 10 years old. She has a pet cat named Chilly. Harmony is a spy. Harmony anxiously ran down the stairs with her cat on her shoulder. Chilly has orange fur and black triangles on her face. Chilly has black paws and is also a spy, like Harmony. 

Harmony picked up the phone. “Hello… who is this?” she asked.

“It is Martin,” he answered. Martin was Harmony’s boss. Martin is also a spy. He has red hair and his name is not really Martin. His name is CoSpy303. Martin is his code name. 

“I have a mission for you,” said Martin. “There have been reports of animals and cheese disappearing.”

“Doctor McAfee,” said Harmony and Martin together. 

Doctor McAfee is the worst villain of all.

Oh, by the way, Harmony was still wearing her pajamas. 

“Who but Doctor McAfee,” she exclaimed. “He’s the only villain who steals pets and cheese. 

“I’ll start looking at files in the morning,” said Harmony as she went upstairs to bed.

In the morning, she went downstairs to eat breakfast and get an early start on the files. When she was done with breakfast, she went up to her room. 

Later, she walked around the block and talked to all of the victims. She stopped at Mrs. McRuddy’s house first. 

“Hello, Mrs. McRuddy. Can you tell me what happened? asked Harmony.

“Well, I was going to the grocery store and when I came back my sloth Fefe was gone and so was all my cheese.”

“Can you tell me what time it was?” asked Harmony.

“It was on Thursday at 3PM.” Mrs. McRuddy. replied.

“Thank you,” said Harmony. Then she went around and asked all the people about the crime, then she went home with the data, 

“Hmmm, look, Chilly. “Mrs. McRuddy and Mr. Landry and Lilly all have something in common, but I can’t quite put my finger on it,” said Harmony. 

“Meow,” said Chilly.

“I know. I’m hungry too,” said Harmony, so they went out to lunch and got ice cream.

“Oh, Chilly, I’ve got it. What they have in common is the date and the time. All of their pets and cheese went missing on the same day and at the same time,” exclaimed Harmony. 

“Meow,” said Chilly.

“That means he will go to Mr. Zack’s house next on Thursday at 3:00.”

On Thursday they went to Mr. Zack’s house at three, but Doctor McAfee did not show up.

“Maybe we were wrong. Maybe that’s not the pattern,” said Harmony.

She went to Mrs. McRuddy’s house and asked. “What did your pet have to eat just before you left?”

“She got cheese, but that was strange cheese,” said Mrs. McRuddy.

“Can you tell me what it looked like?” asked Harmony.

“It looked like cheese, but with red flashy things,” explained Mrs. McRuddy.

“Very strange,” said Harmony, She decided to visit the other houses once more, then went home.

“I don’t see anything wrong with the cheeses,” Harmony said.

“Meow,” said Chilly. 

“Don’t be silly, Chilly… wait a minute. They do look like robots… zoom in close and they ARE robots,” said Harmony. “We must run to Mr. Zack’s house.” 

At Mr. Zack’s, they found Doctor McAfee switching the cheese so that Mr. Zack’s cat would go to Doctor McAfee.

“I hope you have fun in jail because that’s where you are headed,” said Harmony. Then she called the police and they were there in two minutes.

“Thank you, Harmony,” said the police.

“You’re welcome,” said Harmony.

And so, that is how Harmony defeated Doctor McAfee.

Sky Felker is the author of THE TYPEWRITER AND THE PAPER https://kennethharperfinton.me/2019/06/04/the-typewriter-and-the-paper/