The Birthday Candle Joke

2024 Oct 4

Austin’s birthday is in early September. There were some observations of his birthday, but nearing the end of the month Austin asked if Melanie would be making a dinner for his birthday. Of course we could do that. So, she planned and made one of his favorite meals. She had picked up an ice cream cake, and she put birthday candles on it.

When the boys were young, we used the small single stick candles. About the time the quantity of lit candles on the cake started getting dangerous we found candles in the shapes of numerals and started using them instead. They were easier to light, and usually we only needed two digits. Eventually we had a pretty complete collection of them.

Austin turned 39. When Melanie looked in our candles she didn’t find a “3”, so without thinking too deeply, she substituted a “4”. (They are adjacent values, right?) When the cake was set in front of Austin, it said he was 49 years old! He was quite surprised, but we all laughed and he blew the candles out.

Melanie’s birthday is in early October. Nine years ago the kids were trying to decide what to get her for her birthday. She didn’t need new things because she already had everything she needed. So they came up with the idea to cook a gourmet multi-course meal for her.

Quotes: Short and Interesting

Morality - 2024 October

Unless ultimate reality is moral, we cannot morally condemn it. - CS Lewis

Religion [is] toxic when it elevates its theological views and its doctrines above … our need to love and serve one another. [Science is toxic when it does the same with its views and doctrines. There are] rational scientific world views, which … see human beings as disposable pawns in the march of progress. That's wrong as well. - Julian Baggini, humanist

(Quote context and citations are in the note links).

Understanding - 2024 July

In mathematics you don't understand things. You just get used to them. - John von Neumann

I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics. - Richard Feynman

If you understand [God], it is not God you've understood. (Si comprehendus non est Deus.) - St. Augustine

Bioluminescence and Cello Music

2024 Jul 7

Melanie was talking with a friend about the bioluminescent microbes in the Puget Sound that can be seen in the dark. On a whim, she checked our favorite kayak tour guides. They had a nighttime tour for Sunday from Bowman Bay at Deception Pass State Park! New moon was only the day before, so it would get quite dark and the viewing would be good.

I booked for two people not knowing if the time would work for Melanie’s friend. It did. But then when I went back to see if I could add myself, there were no more empty spots.

With our long summer days, it would be a late start and a late return home. Driving so late would be difficult for Melanie, so I offered to take them. I brought along things to keep me busy while they were out, including my cello.

Kayak Camping: Shaw, Lopez, James Islands

2024 Apr 21

My general plan was to do a circumnavigation of Shaw Island. I had three days for camping, but Shaw would not take that long so I included a spur out to Lopez Island. I walked onto the early ferry from Anacortes to Orcas Island, pulling my wheeled boat.

The first day’s route ended at Shaw Island County Park:

The view of the Olympic Mountains from the campground.

It was unusually warm weather for April. The parks reservation system doesn’t open until May however, and kids are still in school, so even with the good weather very few people were out camping. This first night I was the only one at the campground (and subsequent nights I saw hardly anybody in the evening either).

Is Christianity Exclusive?

2024 Feb 26

Is Christianity exclusive? Maybe.

Christianity is very inclusive because it includes all people and all ethnicities and all cultures.

However, what is distinctive about Christianity is what it offers. The promise of Christianity is a relationship with the God represented by Jesus.

Everybody Believes in the Supernatural

2023 Sep 7

Our universe happens to exist. Most people subscribe to the Big Bang's explanation of its cosmological origin. In this, our universe began in the finite past, bursting into existence from a single point and expanding out to size.

All things naturally physical (including energy and matter), all physical laws of our universe, all space and even time itself did not exist without this singularity. Absent this singular event, nature itself did not exist. Therefore since the event was not of nature, it was by definition super-natural. In the Big Bang model the origin of the universe was supernatural.

Others believe the universe had an infinite past, always existing with its characteristic features. This view would seem to make the issue of origin disappear, but it does not.

In our physical world real infinities are never actual because they are unable to exist. There cannot be an infinite quantity of things because there are a finite number of particles available in the universe. There cannot be an infinite number of events because then there would never be an event to start the event sequence. Infinity is only a concept we play with in our minds because infinity itself is supernatural.

However, we exist. Since an infinite past in our natural world is impossible, an infinitely old universe would be supernatural.

Therefore, the existence of the universe through either the Big Bang or an infinite past is supernatural. Of these two ideas most scientific lines of evidence point to the first, making it the preferred view. So then because of our universe, everyone believes in at least one great miracle.

Mechanistic Causes

Since everything that begins to exist has a cause, the next great question is what was the cause of the Big Bang? We already know it was not natural (of our universe), however, it might still be a mechanistic cause. A huge issue that this cause must also explain is why our universe is constructed with hyper precision to support life.

Why I am Still a Christian

2022 Sep 14

I was born into a Christian family. However, today my view on Christianity is not the same as it was when I was a child.

Often a person remains in the religious belief system they grew up in. If they do leave their belief system it may be for reasons that involve experience, rationales or evidence. I however am still a Christian, and it is because of evidence, reason and experience.