i got up this morning to a cup of coffee anna was watching PBS the show was genius hosted stephen hawking where the great scientist asks the question 'why are we here' frankly i don't know why we are here but hawking suggests that if time is a dimension than it could theoretically be mapped much like a country and if that is the case that time is a dimension that can be mapped than the past the present and the future have already happened is there such a thing as free will

i believe our lives to use a phrase by the late poet tom andrews are 'irradiated by chance' but that doesn't mean we have free will because if what happens has already happened but it seems chaos rules the cosmos hawking and his ilk have a theory called many worlds in other words there are an infinite number of universes and a version of ourselves lives in each of those infinite number of universes where every choice we make have an infinite number of results in short everything has happened already but there are an infinite number of outcomes of everything having been done

that fucking made my head spin but here is another thing hawking said that i completely agree with our brains are organic matter made from the stuff of the universe and are governed by natural law in other words we are quite ordinary we are not endowed with supernatural force and if that should bum you out might i remind you that the universe we live in is so strange so wild so beautiful that the ordinary becomes the miraculous

i am of a mind to not believe in god for there is no evidence in an invisible all-powerful intelligence that governs who wins and loses at football games there is nothing there but nature and the question why are we here will never be answered and i'm good with uncertainty i think the three most beautiful words in our language are I DON'T KNOW

but i don't rest at unknowing because those three words lead me to more questions that lead to greater mysteries that illuminate the body and mind as for my unbelief in god i find it a fair question frequently asked of me what if i'm wrong and i die and find myself before god having to answer to my skepticism of his existence and should i find myself in that situation i will say what sgt. dietrich played by the late comedian steve landesberg on the great 1970s comedy cop show barney miller said when asked that question about his unbelief and after he dies if he finds himself before god having to answer to his skepticism of faith he will take a deep breath look god in the eye and say oops