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Well, that was, long. I understand why you wanted to spend so much time driving home the idea that you are science based, so I’m not going to question that. That we are made of star stuff, that we are born with the desire to care for each other and that we are a web of energy are all science based statements you have made that also resonate with the spiritually minded. There are more religious leaders coming forward that are willing to use this language and to dance around the old scriptural language. Some are even leaving that behind. I was for that movement while I was a believer and never really stopped advocating for it as I lost my faith.

At some point, the Jesus narrative failed me. For the most part I was alone with that moment. I started an email to a guy in England, but I knew it would come across as a little crazy. What was there, was Neal DeGrasse Tyson with his “star stuff” speech, JRR Tolkien with his allegory, and a few people who I could talk to about Parzival and the power of myth. My closer friends, some Christian some not, who said things like “and God can be thought of (in Part) as self-lucid energy”, were not helpful. I’m lucky that cutting those ties was not as painful as they are for most, but I did get a few questions about what went “wrong”.

I could dig into my notes from Richard Carrier and explain why designing a god and tacking on attributes is a task that ends where it begins, but I don’t think you’re interested in that. The understanding I hope we can reach is that whatever it is that keeps you in a place where you can make statements about capital G God attributes is very close to what keeps me from doing it. It’s not a switch that gets flipped based on a feeling, it’s a lifelong journey that informs the thoughts before they are thunk. It’s the pattern of the web that holds you together. It can be altered, but not with mere facts.