Day 99 of the Lower Puna Eruption, and the pause continues. Mayor Harry Kim has requested a half-billion dollar lava aid package and has gained the support of Governor David Ige. Legislative supporters of Colleen Hanabusa have criticized the timing as a blatant attempt to affect the outcome of the gubernatorial race, for primary voting is on Saturday.
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It was about a month ago that my life changed. I decided to plan an optimal conclusion to my life. Nothing like suicide. More, how to best live from that day on. I have thus been in a mildly euphoric state and am definitely optimizing my happiness. Here, a quote from that posting:
I will still develop a plan for the end of my life, for the last thing I'll want is to live in pain, discomfort and boredom on our hospital floor for a very long time. Switzerland might still be in my future.
But on further thought, I want to ignore the final end. I will be optimizing the rest of my life. Ultimately, something less foreboding and more blissful. In the meantime, I have today.
With that introduction, I will nevertheless delve into the matter of death, which is 100%, and an afterlife, which, for me, has, perhaps a 0.1% chance of happening. I just don't know for sure. According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll taken seven years ago involving 18,829 people from 23 countries, "only" 51% were convinced that there is an afterlife. Eleven years ago AARP asked Americans, and found that 73% believed in life after death, where the female percent was 80%. Men are more skeptical at 64%.
According to WIN/Gallup International polls, in an an article from The Telegraph earlier this year:
Five countries are at the 99% level: Ethiopia, Malawi, Niger, Sri Lanka and Yemen. Six countries from #20-#24 at 95% are Ghana, Mali, Qatar, Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Zambia. The ten least religious countries are: China (7%), Japan (13%), Estonia (16%), Sweden (19%), Norway (21%), Czech Republic (23%), the Netherlands (26%), Israel (30%) and United Kingdom (30%). The USA? Somewhere in the middle at 56%. There should be a direct correlation between belief in God and the Afterlife.
I wrote a whole chapter in SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Humanity on The Golden Evolution about the future of religion. Here are a few quotes:
- God is different things to different people. If God can be seen in anyone at anytime, that certainly can explain why the belief rate is so high. Is this why the United States percentage hovers around 95%? (That was in 1994. Today? Still 89%.) But then, why do Japan and Israel, seemingly wallowing in religious traditions, report much lower figures? There does not need to be an afterlife in the Jewish religion, so, of course, that provides a partial explanation. Japan supposedly is the country, next China, with the most number of atheists and agnostics, so what you see when you visit are artifacts of a past culture.
- So, therefore, place yourself back to circa 50 AD. Nothing much can be found about Jesus. Conflicting descriptions can be unearthed about this individual, but absent any miracles and the connection with Son of God. Is it possible that a group, say, the Antioch Jesus Movement, sees an opportunity to spur something called Christianity? So they pick a mortal of those days who might just fit a concept called the Messiah. They borrow selectively from early Egyptian, Indian, Chinese, Mexican (nah, scratch this, Columbus came 1500 years later) and Greek writings to create the legend of Jesus Christ around a real-life martyr. He was in his prime at the age of 30, so they choose 30 AD as the founding of Christianity. Could this incredible PR ploy have started it all? Did all this lead to the Catholic Church of today?
o United States 55.0%
o Philippines 35.2%
o West Germany 24.4%
o Israel 21.9%
o Russia 16.8%
o East Germany 6.1%
- In the recent survey of National Academy of Sciences members, less than 10% believed in both. Remember, the general American populace figure is between 59% and 96 %, depending on the question. Biologists had a belief rate of around 5%. An astounding 72% are outright atheists. In any case, our top scientists just do not believe in God and an afterlife.
I can go on and on, but read for free the entire chapter on The Golden Evolution, starting with Part 1. I've never been closer to death. I don't think about how and when. I also ignore the possible afterlife, for my chances of something like that are infinitesimal.
I am ecstatic that I can, and plan to continue, enjoying life to the fullest.
Now that the Lower Puna Eruption is coming to its end, perhaps I need to change this blog site. Well, hardly that.
Perhaps Happiness or Hedonistic Pleasures or some combination of both.
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Hurricane Hector has passed Hawaii:
I took this photo when I awoke this morning. Hector is somewhere beyond the horizon:
Japan took Typhoon Shanshan well yesterday. However, here comes Typhoon Yagi:
If you're going to Japan or Korea, be careful.
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