Kayak Camping: Stewart, Orcas, Jones

2025 Apr 28

Encountering orca in the Puget Sound is a numbers game. The odds are improved by paddling often in areas they are known to frequent. This trip I hit the jackpot!

My kayaking buddy was still looking for a coastal kayaking weather window. It seemed this week could be good, but again it was not to be. Since I had already taken vacation and prepped myself for kayak camping, instead I decided to do a solo trip in the San Juans. (Interestingly it was almost exactly a year from my previous trip there.)

This was the float plan. (Red is on the ferry.)

I got up early, drove to Anacortes and walked on to the WA State Ferry, towing my kayak on wheels.

Everybody Believes in the Supernatural

2023 Sep 7

Our universe happens to exist. Most people subscribe to the Big Bang model and its description of 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 initial 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. Infinities are mental concepts that physically impossible, and so infinity itself is supernatural.

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

Therefore, the existence of the universe through either the Big Bang or an infinite past is supernatural. Since most scientific lines of evidence point to the Big Bang, it is generally the preferred view.

So then, because our universe exists, 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.

Quotes: Short and Interesting

The World God Made - 2025 February

God has chosen to create a world where both good and evil can flourish, rather than one where neither can exist. - Granville Sewell

Evolution of Cars

If you asked me, “Do you believe in evolution?” rather than an easily misunderstood yes or no answer I would reply “I believe in the evolution of life, and the evolution of automobiles, but I don’t believe either could have happened without intelligent design.” - Granville Sewell

Precondition for Science - 2024 November

Scientific investigation proceeds because scientists assume for the sake of their research that what they are studying is orderly and reflects some rational purpose. ... In other words, they treat them as if they were engineered, as if they were designed. ... This is the essence of much of scientific investigation today. We treat things as designed so we can understand them. And that's why Intelligent Design is ... a science starter. It's actually the precondition for being able to do science. - John West

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

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.