I'll answer the last question. BUt I need to ask one of you. Did you really see angry or ticked off in that blog? I certainly felt none as I wrote. Did everyone else see an angry blog there too? Just sitting around reading prompted the blog. It started with the Chronicle fishing report, versus a memory of my last couple of floundering trips, or as I called it, wading amilessly for  couple of hours, until my feet looked like prunes inside my neoprene boots and my stringer looked like a piece of string. I remember thinking that if I could walk on that water, all I would really need to change about my fishing gear, was to get a longer handle for my gig and light stick, and oh, I could also get away with going floundering in sandals. When I threw in the towel and took my two flounder home, the other story came to mind. Later, sipping on a nightcap, and reading some more, more specifically a recent installment of a regular here in the blogs, entitled Scripture For The Day or maybe "message", or "parable" or "verse", look it up. I decided to pick up "the Book"(the greatest story ever told) and skim it a bit, and write a book report, which turned out to just be a rehash of my own beliefs. I hope when my time comes, that the good I have done, far exceeds the bad and the mistakes in judgement. Lord knows I try :-) . In reading ages in the obits, it has become clear that my time is near or at least closer than I'd like it to be, considering I am nowhere near finished with my ever growing "to do" list. In the immortal words of Ray Wylie Hubbard(a Christian), "some get spiritual because they see the light, some 'cause they feel the heat"(from "Conversation with the Devil") . for those who will be nice, and ask, I might consider e-mailing an mp3 copy....I doubt the author would shun the free exposure. Or maybe go to http://www.kpft.org/index.p... and listen, maybe they will play it or something else that catches your fancy. (click on listen now). At any rate, when I was younger, I would see those who were beginning to gray a bit and expand around the mid section, suddenly when rounding the last turn and seeing that home stretch, bolt back for the church they hadn't set foot in since that "mother's little helper", called vacation bible school, back in their youth (save for a few funerals). It is just too much of a coincidence that they all "saw the light" at the same point in their lives, and more likely it was after pallbearer duty, and a careful review off forty years of hell raising and a midlife crisis or two, more likely a case of feeling the heat. But that's just an old pirate looking at sixty talking.......... and no, I have yet to all of a sudden "see the light" in what I consider a bunch of fairy tale organized religions, and make a "What the Hell" run for sanctuary. I may still be searching for more in the way of an answer to creation, failing to believe it was done in six days, but I am pretty content with my beliefs, here sitting at the helm of my own ship sailing towards that sunset. FWIW, this reply is a full twelve hours since I penned(pecked actually) that little piece of blabber, and I am rested, nourished, and not on coffee or drugs.......just some cantelope and strawberry, guava fuze........as I comment. Hot enough out for ya?

Nicely said Pilot. 

May I ask what got this topic started? 

Seems as if somebody ticked you off... JW's at the door?

We are all given "free will" by our creator/higher power/mother nature, whatever you want to think.... As adults, we get to choose to believe in God/Jesus/Buddah/Allah/Mick Jagger.... we get to choose to believe in divine creation of man or evolution.  If we choose to believe in God, then we have to choose if we believe that Christ was the son of God.  And if we believe that, then we have to choose whether we believe that Mary was a virgin and remained so in all the years she was married to Joseph... (Catholic belief) or whether she had other children (Protestant belief).... The doctorines/choices are numerous.  No wonder people are turning away from organized religion. 

The one thing that gets me really ticked, are the ppl who come to my door trying to convert my beliefs to theirs.... Thank you, but I already have a house full of deities.... I don't need anymore. 

Pilot, to each his own, I always say.  I don't push my beliefs down anyone's throat, or tell you yours is wrong... I don't even try to force my beliefs on my own kids!  If I find out that I believed a fairy tale for all these years, I'll be highly disappointed. 

Understood my Good Man. Why anyone would try to "save" you is beyond me. Not that you are not worthy. Just that to drag anyone "kicking and screaming" to their own salvation in itself, seems (for the lack of a better word) unChristian.

Imagine the holy hell they would raise if some Muslim tried to convert them to Islam......wait.....I think that's been goin' on for centuries....

Have a great weekend..

I shouted out, "Who killed the Kennedys" when after all, it was you and me. Pilot, this should be framed or bronzed, or something. I am now comfortable with how my spirit will live on, whereas maybe a decade ago, I certainly wasn't. No revelations, no epiphanies, just a long and methodical attempt to be a better person while I was still on this Earth. I really believe that is what it is all about. Those torturous memories of pissing away gifts and blessings that I was given will hopefully be very few, and I hope that when my time comes, my spirit will be warmed by that light you speak of.

Okay, people, which way are YOU going?