Today, Feathered Quill reviewer Kathy Stickles is talking with Timeout A. Taumua, author of The Magnificence of the 3.

FQ:  I found your book to be a very thought-provoking look into the connection between science and religion and I enjoyed reading it. What made this book such an important topic for you to choose to write?

TAUMUA: I was serving a life sentence in California and when I was about to be released after 28 years, I finally figured out what I was going to do if I was. I was going to be a published author, and the subject was to prove that there was a God and that God is recorded in the Bible.

I spent over 21 years in the maximum level IV prisons in California amongst the worst of civilization. The majority were men serving long sentences or life sentences for violent offenses. We naturally ended up associating with one another given the environment. I found that regardless of background and ethnicity, at least for the people I associated myself with, most prayed for a do-over and a second chance at life. So naturally, we all made plans or fantasized I should say, as the majority planned to own a business with a General Education Development (GED) diploma. LoL. So the conversations with people I surrounded myself with then were mostly positive because of these fantasies, hopes, and dreams.

Then, after two decades, officials decreased my threat-level classification and transferred me to a lower-level 3 institution. This was a culture shock. I found myself still with prisoners serving life sentences, but amongst them were what we called short-timers. These were inmates serving short sentences or parole violations. These were mostly young adults under 30 years old, and the majority were gang members sharing their life stories up front with tattoos on their faces.

They scared me, and it wasn’t for my safety but I was scared for society. I was scared for my kids and family if these were the types of young people they encountered daily. These kids also made me confront my own past fully and question whether, after two decades of incarceration for my own crimes against society, I was any better than them. I often wondered whether families would eventually post a family member as a night security guard for them while others rest. These kids finally forced me to confront the legitimacy of the Bible’s creation and God the Hebrews brought to us.

If God of the Bible was true and did design the human body, was it flawed; or was it because of the influence of the environment that kids grow up violent; or was it because we did evolve from chimps as evolution teaches; or was it because of human error in the interpretations of the scriptures?

These self-deliberations ended up giving life to one of my childhood dreams, which was to be published. I decided then that the best solution for improving public safety was to prove with scientific evidence that there was a Creator and that Creator was the one the Hebrews brought to the world. Since younger generations respect scientific facts from science over the faith-belief system of the Church when it comes to the questions related to the God-Creator, then we must search for evidence in science. The future of mankind depends on the information we pass on to the children and by all appearances based on escalating violence on the streets, the Church has run its course.

This was how I ended up deciding on what I wanted to do if I was granted mercy with a second chance at life. I was going to find ten pieces of scientific evidence that the average person would understand to prove that the God of the Bible was real. For some reason, I was very confident that the scientific evidence was there. As it turned out, God revealed to me more than ten pieces. He even revealed His four long-lost icons that turned out to be scientific facts.

The audience I intended for was the average person with limited education as most violators of the law to me then were from this class, but as it turned out, it is the educated class with Pastoral, Master's, and Doctoral degrees who need to meet God more than these young thugs.

FQ: I am guessing that it took a lot of research and a lot of time to write this. How much time did it take to do all of the research/writing and put the book together?

TAUMUA: This project took ten years. I was five years into the draft when the atom floated across my screen. I immediately saw the parallel of its structure to the image of God that the snake told Eve about in Genesis. So I stopped drafting and a whole new theme began that turned into this book. Thankfully, the internet made this project possible as it makes access to information for this kind of project much simpler compared to the past when all such information could only be accessed with books.

It took longer too as I was working full-time. I planned on committing full-time to this project when I was released but I began to suspect that family and friends also suspected that I didn’t want to work considering the career I chose. It was understandable. So under duress (lol), I went to work and whatever time I could spare was spent on my laptop.

However, if it wasn’t for the Covid shutdown of 2020, it would have taken a lot more time. Once it started, I quit work, shut down for two years, and finished the draft.

But then I ended up spending over a year on the first editing. After the stress of the first draft I submitted to editors, I took a little break as I was burned out then. All the scientific subjects I used to support claims were new to me. I didn’t even know the name of the atom’s particles except one was a negative and the other a positive. So during this break, I began to see a lot more scientific meaning of the parables that were not included in the first draft. This was why my first edit was over a year and ended up with 20,000 extra words added to the transcript. I ended up paying my vanity publisher extra fees for it too.

I also had to take a short break to self-publish a book. As I was getting close to the end, I began looking into finding an agent and a publisher. As it turned out, this was not simple. So, I decided to self-publish a short book just to learn the process in case I had to publish this book this way. It took less time to write this book of proposals than going through the self-publishing process.

Taken all together with these side distractions including working full time, it took ten years for the project to be published.

FQ: What is your writing process? Do you, as a writer, do all of your research first and then write or is it a combination of the two?

TAUMUA: I took a few online classes in a community college for business management while incarcerated. I had to submit one paper for an English class if I remember correctly. This was the extent of the experience I had in writing a thesis.

However, I had some preparation that was similar in structure while in prison without realizing it. It came to me during the editing that claims and arguments presented to the community with references to support claims, were the same format I used to submit legal motions to the Courts during a lawsuit I filed against the State. I first had to identify what the state did that violated my Constitutional rights, then searched for case laws and authorities in legal books to support claims of the violations. Putting this book together came through a similar process. A biblical parable revealed its meaning while drafting, then I had to search for the science to define it for the community.

However, most of the claims presented in the book fell on my lap while writing. For example, I never knew or heard of the Wood Wide Web theory until it popped up on my screen while clicking sites to find something, and that something led me to this scientific discovery. It turned out to be in line as a piece of supporting evidence for my assertion that it was the human brain that God referred to as the Garden of Eden. God designed the earthly forest first and then imitated the blueprint of the earthly forest to design the human brain. God did it this way to make it easier for us to find it and identify the Garden He was referring to in Genesis.

This was how this process went. For example, when I saw the atom and found out that all ordinary matters in the universe were made from this, I then thought to myself: if God did create heaven and earth as He said in the first verse of Genesis, this meant that He had to have been fully aware of the atom. In that case, He had to record it somewhere in the Bible. If not, then we have a problem.

So the search began while writing at the same time. During the search, I ended up figuring out why desire was included in the conversation between Eve and the snake, and emotions entered the picture. As I searched for professional opinions, I found the links between emotions, memory, and learning. This led me to the claim about the identity of the Tree of Knowledge while searching for information about emotions.

This was how the book came about. Information dropped on my lap and I just added them to the story as I went along. I had to figure out where to insert some information to make it easier for the reader to follow along as I wrote. That was pretty much how the project came about. Clues fell on my lap as I was writing making each parable much clearer.

FQ: Did you face any challenges/difficulties while writing the book?

TAUMUA: The difficulty was processing and understanding the science as even though experts describe the meaning of a certain discovery of science the same, a slight difference in the use of words may project a different meaning by one of them. This gave me pause and I had to ensure that both expert opinions meant the same. With no background in science, this meant extra research and time.

With science involved in the presentation, I had a hard time trying to explain the scientific part of the parables in simple terms. My goal initially was to focus on people like me with minimal education. I thought they posed the most threat to society while incarcerated. Because of education levels, I wanted to make sure that they read and understood what I was trying to explain if they find this book.

One of the most difficult challenges during the project was convincing myself that what the parables revealed was the truth. For example, the neurons and neuron forests have been known to scientists for a long time. And yet, nobody could see the connection of their designs, functions, and purposes to their biblical identities in Genesis. They even referred to the brain as a neuron forest. As I put these links into words, I began doubting myself. Why was I seeing it this way when scholars and much more educated experts didn’t?

There were many days like these, and the doubts began killing my motivations. However, there was always something that I eventually admitted was from God, which gave me a push and I was on the laptop again.

For example, I have been going through this low self-esteem period lately as the book is not selling like I thought it would. I didn’t fully understand how Christians would respond to a claim that the Bible is a scientific record. A Pastor for example called me a wolf in sheep’s clothing and warned the church against me because of book. I even visited a church where Pastors were gay and they were uncomfortable with me and claims. It’s even worse online if I post on pages promoting the Bible as a scientific record. The reactions and lack of sales have been motivation killers.

But then as I got ready for Christmas, I got your excellent review, a winning award from the Literary Global Book Awards, and another excellent review was issued by the American Writing Awards in which the reviewer said this:

“The Magnificence of the 3 is a rare work constructed by a rare being”.

These are examples of how God got my back during the process and motivated me to keep moving forward with the task. I’m on the laptop now answering your questions. LoL. This is not my work but God’s.

There were other challenges including being on parole while writing. Parole Agents are unpredictable. I had to move to the garage to finish the draft as the Agent at times rummaged through my wife’s undergarment drawers in our room even though he was forbidden by the law. To avoid confrontation and invasion of my wife’s privacy, I moved to the garage. But it worked out as it isolated me from the busy world outside the window. I sometimes fantasized about living in a cell again with just my laptop and access to the internet so I could finish project. I did a lot of thinking with the typewriter while incarcerated. For example, I used the time to draft proposals for improving public safety that I submitted to officials and organizations for review. The last time I saw a Judge, she was very impressed with these proposals. I even tested the waters with a draft of a novel that prisoners liked.

Isolation from the world was what I needed, and the Parole Agent contributed to the task through his oppression by moving me to the garage. LoL. I did not get off parole until the draft was submitted. I took it as a reward from above for completing the task.

And just like all of our daily activities, there are challenges. But with this task, I worked with confidence that it was assigned, so I would be alright. Faith was a tool for gentiles as I discussed in the book, and I had that with me as my motivator. I finally had faith that God was riding with me just like He did all my life without me knowing.

FQ: What do you hope readers take away from reading The Magnificence of 3?

TAUMUA: I set out to prove that the God the Hebrews brought to us was a FACT. The idea was rooted in my fear for the community when I encountered young gang members whose purposes it appeared to me, were to validate their manhood by the number of victims they left behind in their lives. By the time this class figures out the best route for survival, the impact of their behaviors will devastate the future of all societies for generations.

The only solution for me was to prove that there was a Creator. The problem is that these young children had given up on the Church. If you bring God up in the conversation, they demand scientific evidence for proof. Most point to evolution as a fact as it is scientific whereas faith is garbage. Since evolution as a branch of science claims that we might have evolved from a chimp, it explains the behaviors that violate human societal laws.

The brain as designed will plant the information fed to it and the behavior follows. At least that’s how I understand now based on neurology research. To convince these kids that there was a Creator, we must find scientific evidence to counter this insinuation by evolutionists as they understand it. I began first in the Biblical record as I was familiar with this record the most.

We all grew up in a world full of wars and violence. We appear helpless today in recreating a better world for our children as even Christians support, encourage, and cheer on the killing fields of Gaza, justified with the name of Jesus. To convince our common violent thugs that there is a God, it will have to come through science as the Christian faith teaches today that God will bless the church for the killing of Palestinians and their babies in support of people calling themselves the chosen ones. If there is an example of idol worshipping, this is a perfect one.

The goal was to secure and improve public safety from this class of young men with a long-term solution. But the event of October 7 involving the same Promised Land discussed in book unfolded. The response by the Church to the event brought home the very reason behind thugs making fun of God and calling the Bible a book of myths for manipulating and controlling fools.

I watched a Christian Congressman during a hearing about college students protesting against the genocide of Palestinians claiming that God would bless him and America for killing Palestinians on behalf of Israel. American-made bombs were raining down on hospitals and refugee camps killing children then and continuing today. An idol-cow-worshipping female candidate for the American President even wrote her name on a bomb that was destined to be used against Palestinian civilians. And there I was condemning these young thugs who haven’t murdered anyone yet let alone a child!

Instead of calling for peace as consistent with Jesus’s message, the Christians are still calling its members to support and finance the murder of Palestinians for blessings while teaching children to love their neighbors as they love themselves at the same time.

I now feel like I owe our young thugs an apology. I set out with a task to address their behavior in the beginning and at the end of the project, God showed me who the real threat is to Him, His reputation, and to our survival as a species. Grown men and women with Doctoral and Master’s degrees actually think God will bless them for killing children and violating the Commandments! What ignorance!

The threat to mankind from the Christians of the West is very high because political leaders and the church are teaching future generations today that murdering people including children for Israel is allowed for blessings from their version of God. This thought process was contained in the slave owners’ version of Christianity in America, but it is now taught at churches as a gospel for all Christians. Slave owners would praise Jesus on Sundays and on Mondays sold children for money in the town square. Today, Christians condemn women for abortions but have no problem dropping thousand-pound bombs on hospitals and refugee camps they knew children were sleeping in.

American Christians are doing this while mandating public schools to nail the Ten Commandments on their classroom walls, the same Commandments they are violating during this genocide. These were the same Commandments Israel violated why God did not interfere when pagans went into Israel and enslaved the tribes three times and burned Jerusalem twice.

The current environment related to this land makes it obvious to a reasonable person including uneducated thugs that we shall never be a peaceful world. If God and His people can act as animals and beasts of the field, why shouldn’t they?

The only solution that I came up with for our young misguided and unfortunate thugs, is to prove that there was a Creator and that laws were created not to curtail one’s freedom, but to develop the human brain even further. Caring for others as in God’s terms of loving one’s community members like loving oneself, was God’s scientific method meant for brain development rather than restricting one’s freedom to act.

What I pray for is that reasonable people will come to admit and agree on, is the identity of the Tree of Life. If there is anything profitable I want the community to take from this book, is the understanding of why God referred to the Commandments as the Tree of Life. It was not meant to be used to promote political agendas but to organize mankind around it. The same white men who are trying to nail the Commandments on American school walls are supporting and encouraging the bombardment of refugee camps and hospitals killing and dismembering children. This is their interpretation of the scriptures and children are watching and learning from them.

Let’s suppose we can all agree on the identities of the Tree of Knowledge, Tree of Life, Garden of Eden, and Ark of the Covenant as I claim. In that case, we have a foundation to build upon as evidence of God as a scientific fact rather than a faith-based Creator.

It is my dream today to recreate a peaceful world for our descendants, and it is possible by starting in our neighborhoods with our children. The Middle East brought us religions and one of them, Christianity, has a violent history against mankind. This continues unabated today and in the hands of the Americans and British, the westside Gospel Christians is now the most violent organization in the modern world. It is now officially a cult. Followers pray to Jesus in the morning condemning abortions and by lunchtime, they are rejoicing in the assassination and the murder of Palestinians and their babies.

It will be difficult for this book to help reprocess their corrupted brains, but God is known to perform miracles even for fools like me. After all, these gospel Christians claim that there is nothing scientific about the Bible as if to say God is too stupid to be a scientist.

Albert Einstein has been quoted to say, “Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding”. Now, that’s a gospel appropriate for a biblical Prophet if there ever was one about this subject.

FQ: Is there anything in particular in your life or in the world itself that influenced your decision to become a writer?

TAUMUA: I grew up on the islands of Samoa in the South Pacific and when I left high school, my dream was to be published. I wasn’t much at high school. When I first came across the medical term of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder while incarcerated, the symptoms reminded me of my childhood. It explained why I was always in some form of trouble as a result of impulsive behaviors.

One thing I was consistent on, however, was that I loved reading as it kept me from moving, and I used it as the means to travel the universe while living on a rock. I read everything. I learned more in the 70s about the assassination of President Kennedy and his brother and the Vietnam War from the years-old Times magazine in our tiny public library. I stole books to read either from the school or the public library. I know. I’m terrible.

But the dream came about as a result of a teacher’s words of encouragement. We were given an essay assignment one day and I got off on it. I was so shocked when the teacher returned our papers and decided to read my essay to the class. He was shocked too by the look on his face. He did not expect that from me. He did not have to say anything as choosing my essay was enough for me. I don’t remember the words, but I still remember the scene of a small village fishing wharf and the people I wrote about.

I did fail all my classes this fourth year of high school, but I left with a dream as a result of this teacher’s reactions to my essay, which was to be published. It took forty-some years in a round-about way but here we are. God has been really good to me.

That was my dream. But while incarcerated, I began fantasizing about being some kind of positive influence on societies from generation to generation as it is a form of living immortally in the flesh. The solution came while reading in prison. That solution was to write novels that generations after generations will use to improve their survival. The influences of novels such as “Les Misérables” by Victor Hugo, or “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand on societies, turn them into immortals as generations after generations read and study their thoughts.

The only problem was that I did not have the skill level of these geniuses. So I first took time out from my true self to work on improving myself, made a call, and God responded with the Law of Attraction. And here we are.

FQ: Are you working on any new ideas for a future book? If so, can you share a glimpse of this?

TAUMUA: I originally planned on writing a series about the scientific nature of the Bible. But then God kept piling up information on my lap. I began to panic. I wondered what would happen to the information if I walked out to the street and got run over. What would happen to all that God revealed to me?

This was why I ended up paying extra to my vanity publisher after the first edit. I decided to include all I had then, but just the basic foundational claims for others to expand and improve upon if my card gets called. As the book got too big for non-fiction according to the publisher, I ended up editing out some information.

So there are still books left for a series. I plan on beginning in a few months on the next installment. I am interested in exploring emotions further as this subject remains unresolved today as to whether emotions were innate or learned from the environment as evolutionists claim. I am also interested in exploring the relationship between the Trees of Knowledge (neurons) and emotions further. I discussed the basics but I believe there is more. Then there is a discovery from the cosmos that I came across recently that supports the creation of life from dust just as God proposed in Genesis. This is very interesting. These are some of the subjects that I am debating on for the next installment.

FQ: What advice would you give to others out there who are attempting to break into the writing profession?

TAUMUA: There is a book in all of us. Life is a story and individualized to whatever it may be, but it is a lesson that can improve someone else’s life. Sharing our experiences through writing is Jesus’s way of helping others. Don’t get intimidated by believing that a certain education level is required to be a writer. The story is what interests me. Tell your story at my level and I will read it if it is interesting. This book is the perfect example. Even with bad structure and grammar, it collected 14 awards so far and I suspect it is because of the contents, and not the presentation.

The best technical advice I have for an aspiring writer is to set up your writing periods in hourly increments. I set my alarm for an hour for example. I finally wired my brain to full concentration this way as I knew the hour was coming fast and I had to make sure I wrote something meaningful before that hour was over. Then once the alarm goes off, I do something to rest my brain for about thirty to forty-five minutes, then set up another hour. This was how I was able to finish the project during covid lockdown.

FQ: Given the huge undertaking that this book must have been for you I am guessing that you would need a large support system. Is your family very supportive of your choice to write and how do they help you during the process?

TAUMUA: My family sucks. Hehehehe. When I was released from prison, they asked me about my plans. I know they meant like a job. I told them that I planned to write. They asked me what about and I told them. They all had this far-away look but with that slow nodding as if to say, “This lazy dude plans on hanging out expecting three squares with free medical”. LoL. Even family acquaintances and friends looked at me funny when I told them. It might have sounded foreign to them as my people are not known for being authors and writers. There are plenty, however, just not best sellers or whatnot. Of course, I eventually felt guilty and got a job. LoL.

The truth, however, is that I had been blessed more than most considering my life as a loser. I spent 28 years in prison, but my wife held the fort by herself, raised three kids, and kept our family intact. One thing I was known for in prison was my family. Not many families stay together once the prisoner receives a life sentence understandably. To make matters worse, I also got into a lot of trouble in prison, so I ended up serving my sentence in nine different prisons and some were the furthest from home. But my wife kept the family together and tried her best to include me in my children’s lives. My wife would bring the kids to visit me even when it was a ten-hour or twelve-hour one-way drive to prison, even on harsh snow weekends.

I often reminded my wife playfully that God assigned her to me for a reason. I did not know of the reason yet then. Of course, she never believed me. LoL. But I know for sure that her commitment to keeping our family together during the worst of times also motivated me to prove that her choice and commitment were not in vain. This kind of commitment under the circumstances, such as not knowing whether I will ever be released (for like twenty years, those serving California life sentences with the possibility of parole were denied parole), could only be spiritual.

When I was released, I contributed here and there as best I could with knick-knack jobs I found, but she was the main supporter of my family. I did not have to worry about the roof over my head as she organized the house and kept me fed. That stress was on her still while I focused on the project once I began. Her life alone is a book regarding strength and commitment.

So yes, family support has been a blessing, a motivator, and an influence that made this project and task possible. She was assigned to me for a purpose after all. She still doesn’t believe me. LoL.

FQ: I love to ask authors one particular question… if you could have a chance to speak with any author/person, dead or alive, who would it be and why?

TAUMUA: Now that I am 100 percent sure the God of Abraham is real, I’d love to facilitate a debate between Jesus, Ayn Rand, and Bob Marley about the purpose of life. This is still up for debate today. I suspect, however, that there is a clue hidden in the Scriptures and hopefully, these two would force Jesus’s hand and reveal it to us. LoL.

Thank you for your time. I hope this book will influence your life and loved ones in your relationship and journey with God. As you will find in this book, there was a Creator and that record is found in the Torah and the Bible. That Creator was the Original Scientist. Stay blessed.

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