In my book that very verifiable fact is the reason that I use the shorthand "unknown"

The 'Birth of the word' says it all. What other expalanation can you give than the following" A Bump in the night together with being too sleepy or bothered to get up in the cold to investigate, led to a need for a new explaining word . It COULD Have started out as "the little people"- a dig at dwarfism etc but if such were not found then a new mysterious 'Agency' called a "spirit" became part of the local vernacular. Partly named after the effects of drinking too much spirit or more likely the ale indeed any form of alcohol that got real people into troubles. Mischievous definitely. "Once it is named it is understood" is an old wives tale but it persisted and evolved. It eventually became anything which created a feeling and change a mood to wonderment. Giving it a name also relaxed you.

"Marsh Gas" (methane) in secluded marshy areas playyed its part. Spontaneous ignition by some process ignited the gas and caused a wispy flame giving rise to "Will-o-the- Wisp" and other ghostly Apparitions in the misty night

All the above is sheer speculation but as already said "Use your imagination and get a better one".

SPIRITUALITY EQUALS 'PART of the Great UNKNOWN.'

No just explanation got me my living.

@Mcflewster "Explanation got YOU your living" so you say.
How can that be so is what I ask here.
Didn't your usage of your brain, etc, etc, have anything at all to do with it or was it just a ' miracle' of Spiritualism?

@Triphid I was a science teacher for most of my career. Do I need to say more.? If I do then..... I did not teach facts. I taught how to think using facts that pupils discovered for themselves in the most progressive teaching scheme ever invented - Nuffiled Science. Explanation was the other main vehicle of the course .
The scheme's money has run out or moved on to other things and is no longer very visible.
We were left with the ability to say exactly when we did not know something or were unable to explain something which is why I am in 'Agnostics'

@Mcflewster So........

@Triphid I suppose it depends on your view of science teachers. If you thought science was just about facts and not the modern view of being HOW to find facts and that explanation and theories are a way of finding the integrity of facts. Explantions are very important for establishing peoples beliefs . It is all to do with what you believe .. about anything really.

@Mcflewster Yes but are not beliefs WITHOUT FACTS to support them then just meaningless claims?
I learned Science at High School for 6 years, then went on to study it in more depth once I learned its applications in almost every single part of life, medicine, etc, etc.
Do we NOT get our 'modern view' of being and living etc, etc, from both the Facts delivered up by the Sciences, by asking questions of the Sciences and the Scientists, inquiring for ourselves as well and REASONING things out for ourselves WITHOUT someone attempting to add their own little version/s of Mumbo-Jumbo and Woo Woo the equations?
I know, trust and am 100% certain that NO LIVING creature on this planet, Homo sapien Sapiens, INCLUDED have anything REMOTELY resembling what you and your Woo Woo/Mumbo Jumbo Snake Oil Sellers TRY SO HARD to tell and sell us is a SOUL, SPIRIT, etc, etc.
It is CRAPOLA to the maximum imo, since I have sat beside many, many persons as they died and NEVER have I seen anything resembling such a thing depart from the lifeless body and that also INCLUDES being at bed-side as my Daughter, Lorrae, died from Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma on January, 7th. 2001.
I, for one, TRUST in Science, Reality, Reasoning, Logic and Proven Irrefutable FACTS BECAUSE upon those YOU CAN depend.

Oxymoron

@barjoe Pretty much so. lol

There is a group called Religious Naturalism on Agnostic.com

[agnostic.com]

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Which god? Objective evidence that your god exist.

@xenoview
You're still thinking of God as a material thing. Objective evidence is irrelevant. Show me objective evidence that five exists. Not the written symbol for five (5) but the actual number. Where is it? Show me a five. Not five things, but the five itself. It's a self evident concept. Five exists in the human mind, but not just mine. Yours also. So not just in me but outside of me.
Which five? Where does it reside? Ask Plato.

@skado So your god exist only in your mind?

@xenoview
Not my god. God.

Not just my mind. Not just all minds.
Where do numbers exist?
If all humans disappeared, the four leaf clover would still have four leaves.
Four exists in minds and out of minds.

@skado What is your gods name? What evidence do you have your god is real?

@xenoview
What is your five’s name? What evidence do you have your five is real?

@skado You dodge my questions. Your god is only in your mind. All you have is subjective evidence that a god is real.

@xenoview
I understand how you feel.
I don’t mean to be dodging your question.
I’m trying to illustrate how your question sounds to me.

And you have equally left my questions unanswered. My questions were the answers to your questions. If you answer my questions you’ll have the answers to your questions.

You keep referring to “your god” and I’m not talking about “my god”. The god you don’t believe in I don’t believe in either. None of them.

But that’s your god, or your concept of god. Not mine.

I’m talking about God, the literary character, God, the concept (not inside the confines of my head or your head, but God, the concept that is an emergent, biocultural, species-wide, behavioral adaptation of H.sapiens. God, the Platonic ideal. God of Spinoza. And Einstein, and Sagan and Eriugena and Tillich and, and, and... and Joseph Campbell.

Not my god.

God.

Five.

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