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Who: Kimball Corson. Text and Photos not disclaimed or that are obviously not mine are copyright (c) Kimball Corson 2004-2016
Port: Lake Pleasant, AZ
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Inspired by a Long Beloved One Who Believes: a Response

27 April 2012 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
Kimball Corson
Inspired by a Long Beloved One Who Believes: a Response

On religion: the core question in this context, within the etiology of our theory of knowledge, is what is true (that is, demonstrable or verifiable) and what is conscious delusion or our imaginings. Atheists, and now a majority of scientists, reject the idea of a personal God of the genre “he walks with me; he talks with me” or of the comforting sort, as being fantastical and delusional, with no support in reality.

Too, the notion of a God needed to create and run the universe is now repudiated as well. As Stephen Hawking has explained, the universe is infinitely cyclical. Timeless; without beginning or end. With what we now know, no god is needed to explain anything, not the Big Bang, the processes or what we observe. As Hawking puts it, “There is nothing for a God to do.”

Scientists therefore now mostly reject the idea of a personal, comforting God as delusional, but, that does not preclude a spirituality that stands in awe of all creation, the operation of the self generating laws of the universe and of our own lives. No master mind is required, so none is revered. Us, our place, our life in the world, and the processes of all natural phenomena are enough to sustain a meaningful spirituality. The conception is almost Buddhist.

There is a huge difference between such spirituality and the conceptions of organized, systematized and socialized religions. Where spirituality prevails, it is often in spite of and not because of such religions.

Gods and religions are created by man -- some 2200 of them by our last count -- to provide us with comforting delusions as well as very real society within which to interact and find support for those delusions. That is what religion is about, along with a modicum of behavioral control.

It is indeed, “[n]ot a bad idea to be able to add or increase something - be it friends, skills, hobbies, beliefs, etc. - while the years pass, considering that aging is usually accompanied by losses anyway.” But with what, I ask? I would urge with ever greater understanding of more and more in as many directions as possible. The core virtue of a good education is the self sustaining capacity to continuing learning in the same manner as we have been taught. To self teach, as it were. That is my view.

The so called atheistic nations (e.g., some of the Scandinavian countries) often have better and more developed religious freedoms, with fewer foolish controversies attending them, than the US and nothing there precludes any spirituality.

It is most natural, as my life nears its end, to contemplate my life, the changes I have sustained and those I have observed beyond myself, the larger world around me, the character and growth of our knowledge and the larger cosmos I see.

The more I know about all of that going in, the more there is to contemplate and the more meaningful is the spirituality that is the natural extension of that contemplative endeavor. It is as natural as rain and a great way to end life.

The simplifications and condensations of impending senility and dementia are simply to be understood as such and themselves observed. I would go out in in ever greater, but more enfeebled wonderment.
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Vessel Name: Altaira
Vessel Make/Model: A Fair Weather Mariner 39 is a fast (PHRF 132), heavily ballasted (43%), high-aspect (6:1), stiff, comfortable, offshore performance cruiser by Bob Perry that goes to wind well (30 deg w/ good headway) and is also good up and down the Beaufort scale.
Hailing Port: Lake Pleasant, AZ
Crew: Kimball Corson. Text and Photos not disclaimed or that are obviously not mine are copyright (c) Kimball Corson 2004-2016
About:
Kimball Corson: I am a 75 year old solo sailor, by choice. However, I did take on a personable, but high maintenance female kitten, now a full grown cat, named KiKiPoo when she is sweet, or KatKatPo after she has just killed something like a bird or bat. [...]
Extra:
Although I was a lawyer and practiced law with good success for thirty years, creating significant new law, I never really believed in the law, the politics of law or in the over reaching self-interest of most lawyers I met. Too much exposure to Nietzsche and other good and seriously thoughtful [...]
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Profile

Who: Kimball Corson. Text and Photos not disclaimed or that are obviously not mine are copyright (c) Kimball Corson 2004-2016
Port: Lake Pleasant, AZ