Your position on naturalism

[Ignorant]

It's a bit semantic-- you can define "natural" in a lot of ways.  I think I'd argue that if nature is defined as the material universe, mind itself could be seen as supernatural.  That's because while qualia may have physical correlates, even 100% correlates, the nature of experience itself cannot be said to be material.  The "redness" I experience is neither a thing nor a property of a thing. [1]

It seems that you are a catholic mystic to a certain degree. To what degree are you a literalist about the Bible, may I ask? [2] Do you take the resurrection literally? [3] The miracles? [4] Or do you take these as a kind of Dan Brownian symbolism, or what? [5]

1) This is fair, I think.

2) I try to read the bible, as my faith tradition teaches, according to the intention of the author. I don't think every word, narrative, "history" was meant in the literal sense with which we moderns tend to read texts. Some things in the bible are meant literally. Others are not. I try to understand the literal things literally and the other things according to their genre. I am probably not perfect in this attempt, but I keep trying.

3) Yes.

4) Yes, even while I recognize that some of the details of individual miracles may not be a perfect record of the original event.

5) No. I think that Jesus really lived in 1st century Palestine, and he went around actually curing lepers, giving sight to the blind, raising people from the dead, making the lame walk, etc.

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It may seem odd coming from an undergraduate philosophy major, but this kind of analysis doesn't mean anything to me. [1]

"We be" is an indisputable statement.  But just because that describes us doesn't mean we are in any position to say how things stand. [2] We define a few terms and that confuses us into thinking we know something about their 'essence'. [3] I seriously question that we're qualified for this kind of thinking.  Feels like a waste of time to me. [4]

1) Fair enough  !

2) Well, doesn't it mean we are AT LEAST in a position to say how WE stand?

3) Ahhh, here is an important point. Just because we assign a rudimentary definition to an "essence" DOES NOT MEAN that we know much at all about that essence. All we can adequately say is that things have one. Getting at what that essence is in-itself is a much more difficult enterprise.

4) Maybe we are qualified, but we just aren't very good at it? I don't know if it's a waste of time. If saying things like "human nature" or "the common good" or "god exists/DNE", etc. are to have any contribution to public discourse, it seems like a good understanding of the terms involved and how they fit into your view of reality can help move a conversation in a helpful direction. But that's just me.