THE MIND OF GOD

A local radio talk show host needed some material to fit between advertisements. He came up with a plan. Let listeners call in for two days and argue pros or cons of evolution. Was human life on Earth an accident? Or a product of divine intervention?

Callers invaded his phone. The airways crackled. Everyone had The Answer. Or at least their version of The Answer.

I listened. Most all of them were convincing enough, or at least entertaining. The host had a gold mine of opinions to fill the holes between ads in his show. Dollar signs reverberated in his mind and bank account. He stayed mostly neutral, saving his profound insight for the end of the second day. The known world perilously teetered on the edge of destruction awaiting his enlightenment.

Darwin came up as often as did God. Each had dedicated devotees with various degrees of articulation.

Some dated the Earth at 6,000 years. Others at 4 billion. No one addressed how years are counted. No one talked about Einstein’s Theory of Relativity or noted time is altered depending up how fast you move or which cosmic mass you are near. We measure a year by one complete revolution of our planet around the Sun. By our measure, a year on Mercury is 88 Earth days. But if you were on Mercury, one year on Earth is 4.15 Mercury years. No self-respecting Earth lady denotes her age in Mercury years. A year on Pluto is equal to 148 Earth years. In Pluto Time, an Earth year is a day and a half.

With that in mind, I stopped worrying about how long the Earth had been here. A long time, any way you look at it. The debate seemed a waste of time and taxed my meager brain too much. Besides that, it made no immediate difference. I reverted instead to thinking of the chemistry of the human body. Chemical reactions are in constant equilibrium. Matter and energy can neither be created nor destroyed, said Einstein. But under the right circumstances, one can be converted to the other.