Thank you for the very kind words.
You may be surprised at how much we agree. 😊
I do use “faith” conversationally in its vernacular sense. I don’t actually consider any word taboo. Except “clotted cream.” I honestly don’t know how Brits sleep at night. But I have just never known any conversation about religion with any religious person that benefited by discussion of the term.
Point well taken re: abiogenesis>evolution. I just anticipate some level of grief from believers when the gap between the two is filled in.
Finally, while I *think* even garden variety atheists/materialists may find some of my notions of consciousness and identity rather “out there,” I absolutely find usefulness in words like “soul” and “spirit.” Just no supernatural meaning. To me, “mind” is an object with numerous facets of characteristics. Two distinct such attributes can be called “spirit” and “intellect.” For me, demonstration of these distinctions are clear when one consider two different people. Their “intellects” may be very similar; and/or their “spirits” may be similar, but not necessarily both.
On a (vaguely) related note, I do “believe” in miracles. Just not supernatural ones. My favorite example is the story of a person who survived the 2004 tsunami by climbing a tree. I recall news outlets and (naturally) religious outlets remarking the miraculous nature of the person’s survival. Anyone who sees some divine salvation in one person surviving a catastrophe that kills a quarter of a million innocent people should be horsewhipped. But, by almost any reasonable definition (in my opinion), that person’s survival WAS miraculous... to them. 250,000+ people in roughly the same circumstances perished that day. If it was me, there’s no question, I’d be telling everyone I met it is a miracle I am still alive. Statistically speaking, it was amazingly unlikely.
You may be surprised at how much we agree. 😊
I do use “faith” conversationally in its vernacular sense. I don’t actually consider any word taboo. Except “clotted cream.” I honestly don’t know how Brits sleep at night. But I have just never known any conversation about religion with any religious person that benefited by discussion of the term.
Point well taken re: abiogenesis>evolution. I just anticipate some level of grief from believers when the gap between the two is filled in.
Finally, while I *think* even garden variety atheists/materialists may find some of my notions of consciousness and identity rather “out there,” I absolutely find usefulness in words like “soul” and “spirit.” Just no supernatural meaning. To me, “mind” is an object with numerous facets of characteristics. Two distinct such attributes can be called “spirit” and “intellect.” For me, demonstration of these distinctions are clear when one consider two different people. Their “intellects” may be very similar; and/or their “spirits” may be similar, but not necessarily both.
On a (vaguely) related note, I do “believe” in miracles. Just not supernatural ones. My favorite example is the story of a person who survived the 2004 tsunami by climbing a tree. I recall news outlets and (naturally) religious outlets remarking the miraculous nature of the person’s survival. Anyone who sees some divine salvation in one person surviving a catastrophe that kills a quarter of a million innocent people should be horsewhipped. But, by almost any reasonable definition (in my opinion), that person’s survival WAS miraculous... to them. 250,000+ people in roughly the same circumstances perished that day. If it was me, there’s no question, I’d be telling everyone I met it is a miracle I am still alive. Statistically speaking, it was amazingly unlikely.
