THE UNSEEN I

      What does love look like? Or hatred? Or greed? Or lust?

      What do personal values look like? Or opinions? Or prejudices?

      What does the mind look like? Not the brain, but the mind​?

      The answers would seem obvious; all those characteristics make themselves plainly known by the words and actions of those who bear them. But that doesn’t answer the question.

      What do these things actually look like, not their evidences, but the characteristics themselves? Despite their power to effect good or evil, they are invisible.

      By naturalistic standards, since they can’t be seen or quantified directly, they aren’t real, but are simply fiction, poetic elements, or fables. Of course, we won’t find many skeptics rabid enough to honestly deny those things’ existence, because they apparently have nothing to do with the “supernatural,” the spirit world, or the divine. Substitute the word “god” for the word “love,” though, and the skeptics’ countenances will fall, and begin transforming to various shades of red, while their confident words become blustering slogans, formulaic excuses and unanswerable, hypothetical questions.

      In simple fact, despite their protests to the contrary, atheists have less reason for believing in God’s non-existence than theists have for believing that God exists. Both positions are a belief, either positive or negative.

BE-LIEF’, noun
A persuasion of the truth, or an assent of mind to the truth of a declaration, proposition, or alledged fact, on the ground of evidence, distinct from personal knowledge.

      So my question is, “What’s all the fuss about?” Religion isn’t the sole purview of belief. Making it so just demonstrates a failure in objectivity, an irrational position based on fear that one might, just possibly, be wrong.