In a deposition submitted under oath, Frank Masingill said:
 BS> Most, if not all, are born with a sense of the numinous.  As the blank
 BS> mind gets filled with life experiences, even if no religious training is
 BS> part of those experiences, the numinous is expressed in the child as awe
 BS> and wonder of the world and the cosmos.  I believe it  is this that
 BS> creates a curiosity about where it all came from, and is probably the
 BS> initial source for religion, thousands of years ago.  It also gives the
 BS> scientist the inspiration to work toward an understanding of the cosmos,
 BS> whether or not there are any religious overtones to the feeling.
 BS> Regardless of how it is expressed later in life, the numinous is an
 BS> inherent trait of humanity.  The only question is that of whether it is
 BS> instilled by God, or a natural biological function instilled by
 BS> evolution as some necessary survival tool.
 FM>    I find your statement quite sensible, candid and honest.
    Thank you.  That's what I strive for.
 FM> Does the
 FM> "God" symbol HAVE to be separate from biological functions or the
 FM> evolutionary process?
    No, it doesn't.  But most religious folk, at least those with
 Native American or Near-Eastern based religions, perceive God as a
 separate being, and as such would view the symbol as separate from
 biological processes, except maybe an evolutionary process which
 produced a biological method of sensing God.  The pantheism of
 Far-Eastern religions might not require this separation.
 FM> Anaximander in his "undifferentiated"
 FM> vocabulary just said, "all things come from the apeiron and pay one
 FM> another penalty for existence according to the ordinance of time."
 FM> Genuine mystics never were trapped by Fundamentalism relative
 FM> to the Aristotle's "First Cause."
    True, so one's interpretation again falls from one's world view
 about the nature of God.  The mystics have views similar to those found
 in the Far-East, where God is more of an impersonal force, while
 AmerInds, Near-Eastern and Western religions have a more anthropomorphic
 view, at least in that God is a personal, willful being.  Who's to say
 which is the correct view?
... Frisbyterian:  When you die, your soul gets stuck on the roof.
--- PPoint 2.05
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