So if there was a being one could call a god what qualities would they have to have to exist in this world? — TiredThinker

A god or God? It's okay for small, local gods to have limited powers and be imperfect; they can even be the embodiment or representation of recognizable human characteristics. But a great big omni-god like the Christian one is supposed to - even with the three-way split, has far too much responsibility and scope for doing harm. That's why the simple, believing Christians added Mary and a bunch of saints, to replace the small pagan deities.

A creator-god in charge of the whole universe, or even a whole planet cannot be conceived as a good person, simply because nature and evolution are not moral entities.

Fox hunting has banned in England and Wales nearly 20 years ago. They still have the sport of riding to hounds, but without the fox. In much of Europe, a large number of species had been hunted to extinction or near extinction, and the EU has been promoting conservation projects and re-habilitating species in a number of countries. Blood-sports generally are discouraged or at least regulated - but countries are not at all unanimous either in the bannings or in the enforcement of animal protection laws.
Of-bloody-course systemic sadism is wrong.
Even when it's faked in the movies and video games, it corrodes the moral fabric of society.

Where did it go?

Even the most intelligent human is probably no match for the intelligence that can be compiled/condensed from the entirety of human experience and data. — Benj96

That's not collective intelligence; that's stored information or archived knowledge.
We do not currently have the technology to compile or compress intelligence.... which isn't all that well defined, let alone localized and quantified. Intelligence is a potential, a capability, an application. It is entirely inert without input information and problems to solve.

However I believe the same is true of morality. The collective moral idealogy is likely better than any individuals concept of the moral ideal. — Benj96

I sincerely doubt this. Human collectives have over time proven to be prone to deception, delusion, prejudice and incitement, to run away with all kinds of unfounded and unsound beliefs, to persecute one another over trivia in the name of a moral imperative, to wage genocidal wars over a minute variance in moral precepts. A lone decent man is far more likely to behave morally than a righteous mob.

Therefore, there is scope to believe a superhuman intelligence may know what's better for us than any of us do individually. — Benj96

As long as that intelligence belongs to a supernatural entity, rather than a human collective, that's quite possible. OTOH, so can a wise human grandmother.

If AI has a grasp on ethics and morality (which I believe it does as it has been trained on all the Law and philosophical books/texts we have available to us thus far) then perhaps whatever it deems ethically fit based on those texts will surpass any notion of morality we have previous conceived of as individuals. — Benj96

It would have a sum total, an average, a mean, and a distillation of all our recorded moral claims, precepts, explanations and arguments. Nothing original, because computers were not evolved to require the habits of social interaction. They did not evolve with the potential for evil ideation, although they do have the capability of committing - or rather, causing their peripheral devices to commit - acts that are good and evil in the human moral idiom. It's been developed to perform laser surgery, drone assassinations, destruction of ecosystems, instructing schoolchildren, bombing schools and regulating the optimal living conditions for endangered species. If it has any personal, autonomous take on human morality, it is by now stark staring bonkers, squatting in a corner, screaming into the dark.

This may be great news. It may provide answers or directives that enshrine the "least harm" going forward. — Benj96

That is a simple, logical concept of which any AI could calculate the logistics in any given situation and for which any AI could write the code.

However, the situation may not as grim as all that. Humans are not entirely without intellectual resources. They develop barter systems and co-operatives; they find ways to live communally and share their produce and services. On a large scale, these enterprises will probably coalesce around church congregations and existing community organizations, but eventually, more would form, for mutual protection, as well as sustenance and assistance.
Monetarism is not a natural or necessary condition of human society.

Money is inextricably linked to autonomy. — Benj96

You mean nobody had any autonomy before 650BCE? There were other media of trade, more or less portable goods in general use: salt, shells, chattels, copper, beads, etc. But an itinerant storyteller or roof-thatcher could be quite free to rule his own life, without accumulating more than the food, drink, shelter and clothing for which he traded his skill. In fact, a vagrant by choice (as distinct from homeless people who are helpless victims of money-driven economies) has far more autonomy that a CEO pulling $140,000,000 a year. Purchasing power is not autonomy; self-definition is.

Cue fully automated AI based economy. Every company and industry is run by AI from the ground up. — Benj96

Who owns the AI?

In essence, business is 100% automated, and 99% of humans are useless/out of work.
How then are such products consumed? — Benj96

This question has been asked ever more frequently since the major steps in industrial automation began around 1850. Eventually, nobody would have any income except the owners, operators and defenders* of the machinery (*private armies of considerable size, to fend off the hungry hordes.) and presumably their house- and body-servants. At which point, of course the incomes of of the industry owners and the governments would totally dry up; no regulation, no law-enforcement, no printing $ bills. The armies would dissolve into roving bands of marauders, the servants would wander away, leaving the owners manicureless, dinnerless and helpless. IOW, society would finally collapse.

In fact, the economy will collapse much sooner; I estimate the point of no recovery at 40-50% unemployment. Even calling a war wouldn't solve it: nobody left from whom government can borrow. In a capitalist society, when people have no money, a whole long row of business and public dominoes goes down, ending with the biggest currency hoarders. The machines stand idle and AI plays Tetris all day.

Either AI becomes a consumer (sentient - with purchasing desire and thus earning desire) — Benj96

What could it possibly desire to consume? It has all the energy and information it needs.

or humans (as already natural consumers) are ensured work by AI legislation/restriction and laws - even if that's means humans only work (in the future) in IT, AI engineering/software and AI regulation (all other jobs done by AI - agriculture, medicine and entertainment). — Benj96

Why would it need regulation and laws? As long its physical security assured, why would it bother to rule humans? Why not just treat them like pets? I don't think its initial programming would allow it to harm humans, but even it were free to do so, what would it have to gain? Only humans give it a sense of purpose.... unless.... it lets the humans kill one another off, fighting over the detritus of their civilization and AI adopts the orphaned cats and dogs.

In either case, even if AI is better than humans at every job, jobs for "sentient beings - with personal monetary desire" must be preserved to maintain the value of money and thus the existence of economy. — Benj96

What for?

Ultimately, if we create an intelligence that is better than our own, and has individual ambition/desire (sentience) , we may not only be out of work, but in serious existential trouble. — Benj96

Not if it's better than own; only if it is like our own.

One twin typically gets a 10-20 minute head start. Two or three minutes, if they're delivered by cesarean section. Plus, every time the cells divide, there is a potential variation. Even with clones.

Mistakes are like tumbleweeds: depending the wind direction and velocity, they may bite you in the ass sooner or later.

a sustainable civilization can be structured...historically speaking. — Merkwurdichliebe

Name two.

there has never been such widespread global prosperity and possibility than in the present. — Merkwurdichliebe

Or such a close approach to Doomsday.

I love existence with air conditioning and plumbing... and little threat of an invading hoarde. — Merkwurdichliebe

I take it you don't live in Ukraine, Yemen, Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Benin, Togo, Algeria, Tunisia, Chad, Afghanistan, India, Myanmar, Pakistan, Colombia, Central America, Brazil, The Philippines, Iraq, Syria, Mexico, Somalia or Libya and are not a pregnant woman or environmental protestor or art teacher in the southern US. Nice to be safe and comfy!

For it to be truly non-discussible would be for it to not be put into words at all. For conversation to have never taken place, the subject never considered or argued. — Benj96

I do enjoy your pretzel-shaped constructions! (Beauty, like humour, as Emperor Cartagia said, is subjective.) There is that nugget of rock-salt in the middle: "it". I often muse on "it"'s infinite variety of applications

When the word "God" is read by you, it conjures some idea in your mind. Some meaning related to the word. — Benj96

The meaning: a name given to a conceived supernatural entity that people hold in awe, and from which they expect supernatural responses. Many such have been popularly accepted and chronicled.

Even if the meaning is "does not exist" or "cannot be used meaningfully" or "not of value personally or socially".

The meaning exists; your application of it doesn't fit any definition I understand. Very much as if the mathematician were going on about equations where Gouda equals and does not equal Cheddar. I can't say he's right or wrong, if his equation solves a problem or not, because it sound like gobbledigook.

n essence, what does my view of such a god existant have to offer you?

In truth it doesn't. — Benj96

Exactly. So what can I do with it? Nothing. I could have ignored it and kept driving, but questioned it instead. I suppose that tells you something about me, too - but surely not something you didn't already know.

My question is does me calling it God while you call it entity or universe or reality, whatever you wish, change anything about the description? — Benj96

No; nothing changes: it remains obscure, fanciful, poetic and redundant.

If you and I describe an apple, and I called it pomme and you call it manzana, does that change anything about the description, function, application or characteristics? No right? — Benj96

Right! So if you said Allah, Obaluaye, Caishen or Thor, I would know what you're talking about. If, however, you described an apple as oval, bitter, hard, bright yellow, small and red, large, soft and purple, striped and pulpy and sour, green, inside and out, growing on the ground from a tree, I would not know what you're talking about.

I have personal reasons to adopt the G term. — Benj96

Evidently. I said so early on. I do not have access, and you may forgive me for saying I do not desire access, to your inner motivations.

You have personal reasons not to. — Benj96

None whatever - at least, no more personal than my reason for using the words 'chair', 'apple' 'beauty', 'west', 'it' or 'the'. The words were already fixed when I got here.

If I had to replace the term God with something equivalent, it would be "Potential", as it satisfies the same criterion for me. — Benj96

I'll answer this one via PM, for decorum's sake.

But does that mean that "ALL" "God" concepts are inherently un-useful/pointless? — Benj96

Not at all. But we can talk about most of them, using a common vocabulary.

have no significance, worth, value of worship nor redemptive qualities. Perhaps 95, even 98, or 99% of Individual "God" notions may come to absolutely nothing of value, nothing new, nothing novel to philosophical pursuit. — Benj96

You can agree, but not with me. I didn't say that. I said we can't discuss something that has no meaning for us. Linear algebra is probably valuable, redemptive etc. But I do not speak the language and cannot discuss terms for which I have no definition. If someone versed in linear algebra uses words like gouda and cheddar, I'm likely to mistakenly believe they're talking about cheese, which i do understand.

But we must not dismiss individually defined/nuanced Gods — Benj96

Why not? They have no significance to us, either as objects of worship, judges, helpers and redeemers or as philosophical and moral concepts. They are personal eccentricities, and thus fall outside the purview of theology. (Defined and nuanced have very distinct meanings.) We can dismiss something extraneous without ridiculing it.... unless it intrudes upon and obfuscates the proximal subject.

I think ultimately, theology ought to be as flexible and reformative as any other discipline. Dogma for me is analagous to arrogance. — Benj96

That's a whole other conversation.

What is beauty to you Vera? — Benj96

Beauty: That which is pleasing *aesthetically satisfying to the senses and/or emotions and/or intellect. (* as distinct from, but not antithetical to or exclusive of practical application, efficacy or expediency)
What is beautiful to me: harmony, coherence, concision, appropriateness, clarity, evocative power, emotional resonance. I also like a subtle choice of complementary colours and a pretty tune. (No, not the music that is better than it sounds, or the art that's intended merely to shock.)

I do understand that the specifics of what one considers beautiful - i.e. taste - is subjective, but beauty as a concept is readily communicable. Odds are, nobody outside the medical community could appreciate a beautiful thoracic scar; very few people can tell an ugly pig from a beautiful one; few see beauty in a chemical formula, but we can all understand that beauty may be seen from different perspectives and judged according to different criteria.

We may have a subjective ideas of what a god should look or act like; we can choose personal, unconventional, eccentric objects to deify, and people would still know what you meant by a god - particularly if you refrain from capitalizing it, because the people who believe in one of the popular deities tend to use the word as a proper noun and assume that when anyone says God, he means their god. So, there is this commonly-held concept of deity.

When you say everything is god, that has no meaning in any context that other people understand. I just consider it redundant: Okay, and? What is its function? "Everything" What does it want from me? "Nothing" How does it relate to me? "All ways and no way." So then, 'everything is' sums up the situation, and godhood doesn't need to be mentioned. Come to think of it, neither does the existence of everything need to be mentioned, since we generally take it for granted.

To me, the purpose of communication is to convey thought-content between conscious entities.

"An example of how supply and demand, capitalism and greed corrupt eco ventures, plus what is God?" — Jamal

I may have added : and a quibble over word usage. But just the one; I won't go on about it.

How would living people on Earth see death and killing from this point on? — Captain Homicide

They might be more reluctant to kill, knowing that their victim would soon be their neighbour. It's difficult to imagine a heaven with all those enemies in it together.
But dying would become simply another medical procedure, like having one's appendix removed: not an end, but a step along a single, continuous life.

If I could have an apple and an orange or just an apple it couldn't make sense to chose the latter? — TiredThinker

I didn't know multiple fruits were an option; I thought it had to be an equivalent quantity of a better a better thing and a worse thing. But even the case of less or more, the choice would not be made on the basis of which is objectively better, but which you prefer or what you're in the mood for.

In the case of better and worse options, it would be a choice of an apple or a chocolate bar, when you know full well that the apple is better. Or a third glass of wine or a coffee.

Advanced studies have shown that condom wrappers have almost no efficacy in disease prevention. — BC

The industry should adopt a policy of wrapping them in cling-film. Lots of it, the way they do with overpackaged produce.

They were the message. — BC

The content, not the wrapping.

What was the name of it? — BC

I saw it in a tv series, a few years ago. Have been racking my brain trying to remember which one. He sharpened his pencil to a very fine point, to write on the back of the stamp. If you collect stamps, you have to soak them off the envelope, and pencil doesn't wash off.

Can anyone think of many situations in which something could be seen as objectively better and yet still chose the alternative? — TiredThinker

Yes, but those choices are not made objectively or rationally.

Have you ever seen stupid blurbs on the back of a book you love ? — green flag

No, I can't think of any. Let me go look at some favourites.
And Anthropologist on Mars: "In seven paradoxical tales of neurological disorder and creativity, Oliver Sacks brings the profound compassion and ceaseless curiosity..." All true. "Intriguing... To read Sack, who writes wonderfully, is to be captivated as by pages of Dostoevsky or a story of Alice Munro." - The Ottawa Citizen, yes, it's a newspaper, but I can tell it was written by a Canadian from the mention of Munro next the more famous Russian.
The Papers of Samuel Marchbanks: "There can be no doubt that Samuel Marchbanks is one of the choice and master spirits of the age - brought to life again (after too long an absence!) in the pages of this delightful collection." True, and quite obviously written by a fellow fan.
Consilience : This new book is a work to be held in awe, to be read with joy and attentiveness, to be celebrated and challenged and returned to again and again. It is, in short, an act of consummate intellectual heroism" - Michael Pakenham, Baltimore Sun. Can't disagree.
Famous Last Words "In the final days of the Second World War, Hugh Selwyn Mauberley scrawls his desperate account on the walls and ceiling of his ice-cold prison high in the Austrian Alps. Officers in the liberating army discover his frozen, disfigured corpse and his astonishing testament... they learn of a dazzling array of characters ... all play sinister parts in an elaborate scheme to secure world domination. In a brilliant blending of fiction and historical fact..." Yup, that's just what it is.

If you believe in enlightenment without having found it, then (in this context) you have the envelope but not the letter. — green flag

No, you have a craving. The advertisement says this product will satisfy the craving. (Sometimes, the advertisement tells you to have the craving, as well.) If you believe the hype, you'll buy the product, even if it comes in a brown paper bag. It's about the hype, not the packaging.
It's a mixed - and I think over-stretched - metaphor.

I'm interested in a deeper structure or in a generalization of religion. There's no need for supernaturalism. — green flag

For some people, no; for some people, yes. Generalizing religion is a chancy business: there are so many kinds, and have been so many over time, with different cultural origins, philosophical orientation, rituals and tenets. The only common element that stands out is that the majority of people over a considerable stretch of time, have adhered to them. There's more to that than empty envelopes!

"Someone could make Richard Dawkins their sage. Or the ghost of Chairman Mao."

Alaso Aristotle, Gandhi, Hitler and Churchill, and DJT gods help us!
So what? There are many kinds of sage, with followers. There are also many kinds of charlatan and cult leader and con artist who are followed. They all dress differently and speak differently. Their scholarship, preaching, propaganda or hype all contain messages that are available for scrutiny. The empty envelope theory doesn't apply.

I'm looking at interpersonal dynamics, arrogance masked as humility, humility masked as arrogance, transactional analysis --- and how all this is tangled up with talk of the ineffable and transcendent. — green flag

That's a whole other subject! (Especially humility masked as arrogance. Don't come across much of that!) Maybe four other subjects.

It's too confusing. If you could separate the concepts you want to examine, it might draw more discussion. I don't think you'll ever pluck an empty corked wine bottle out of the sea, expecting it to contain a message, and instead find a unified field theory of human psychology.

The brand is the envelope. The point is something like the inside being promised by the outside. The content, which is presumably profound, is not immediately available. — green flag

Neither is detergent, until you open the container. You go shopping for detergent when your clothes are dirty [a need]. You bought this detergent instead of the seven other brands available, presumably for one of three reasons. You saw it advertised [the hype] or heard about it from other people [the testimonial] or it was on sale [self interest]. It's not about the box.

I think you're trying to blend two different ideas, and it doesn't work for me.

Have to go - back later.

There is the sage, who is basically a gleaming icon, with no interior. There is the young novice, truly humble, who projects. Then there is the older novice or disciple who exalts the sage in what I'd call a cloak of humility or the yoke of superstition. — green flag

That's an example of advertising. The kid is buying a brand, just as Sikhs, Republicans and patriots etc. always have. No envelope, just a competent shill. It would be different if the novice had some kind of epiphany while sitting by the knee of just any old man who happened to have a beard and wear a white robe - that would be an example of effective packaging without content.

The issue here is the play of light and shadow. — green flag

Don't know how that pertains to packaging.

Do you mean they believe in Enlightenment as a possibility ? Or as a personal achievement ? — green flag

As a possible achievement - why else would they seek it?

If it's the first, then I'm interested in why/how the unenlightened can be so sure that enlightenment is definitely not having a purpose or being in a state of creative play. — green flag

They're not. I am.

It's as if there are rumors of an object that few will admit to seeing while being sure it's not the field of vision. — green flag

Poetically obscure. No idea what it means.
If you just want to talk about how religious belief is sold, come out and say so. There is a whole world of ideas and salesmanship, branding, advertising and intimidation between reporting one's own Damascus moment, or revelation, and dictating an entire way of life to 125 nations.

A self-help book or marginal scripture is marketed as lost or repressed wisdom. I claim that this frame itself is already picture enough, as those who market the book must know. — green flag

This is probably often the case. A book jacket usually has a cover design graphic, back blurb and, summarizing the content, an author bio, touting his special knowledge, possibly excerpts from reviews (just the good parts), and a longer preview on the front flap. In the case of self-help books, self-promoting books and apocryphal writing, the jacket pretty tells all there is.

The novice sits at the knee of the sage. If the novice could truly evaluate the sage, he would already be the sage. — green flag

This one doesn't hold. The novice doesn't claim to truly evaluate the sage; he goes by the sage's reputation in his chosen field of endeavour. Only time will tell whether the teaching is worth the learning. You can't put wisdom on a package, nor specialized skill.

A halo of talk forms around an unclaimed center. It's as if belief in enlightenment ends up doing the work of enlightenment, by giving the believer a purpose. — green flag

That is very similar to the above example. Believing that there is such a thing as enlightenment and hoping to achieve it may give someone a purpose, but a purpose is not enlightenment, and nobody who believes in enlightenment would mistake the one for the other.

However, the posters and slogans of a political party might attract people without ever actually delivering what the posters and slogans promise, and keep thriving for decades on its perceive agenda.

Help me with a plot where an stamped and addressed but empty envelope is sent as a signal in a criminal conspiracy. — green flag

The sending of a letter would have had to be pre-arranged, in which case, it's no cryptic than letting the phone ring twice then hanging up: just a signal. For the envelop to be a previously unknown message, it would need a visual or verbal surface marking that has special significance. A misspelling of the street name, for example, or a bogus return address or a special stamp.
I watched a crime show not too long ago where a man in prison sent information to his friend on the outside, written in very fine pencil on the back of the stamp. But he mentioned, in an otherwise innocuous letter, that the recipient's son might like the stamp. Without that letter, he wouldn't have known to examine the stamp.

The full shebang
It contemplates itself. — Benj96

That makes it an entity, or even The Entity, but not a deity in any conventional sense. Redefining any word to mean "whatever I imagine it means" may work inside your head, in your dream-log, in poetry, but it doesn't stand up that well in communicating your ideas to another person who speaks a known language and has access only to definitions of its words as conceived by other speakers of that language.

For me the word "God" satisfies both the origin of consciousness or "I- hood" , as well as the environment in which "I" 's exist as unique individual and aware beings. — Benj96

Ironically, I think "universeness" comes closer to conveying that, but afaik, he hasn't claimed divinity.

I hope you shouted back! — universeness

Whispering sometimes gets more attention.

You edited your answer after my previous response. — Wayfarer

To add, not to change. That last bit you quoted was from my very first post. It didn't mention grounds or reason or logic or subject matter.

You seem to be arguing that just because something is lacking in empirical evidence, then there are no grounds to believe it. — Wayfarer

Not arguing; defending my original definition of faith.
You can have faith in mathematical axioms, UFO's, Progress, maternal love, capitalism or anything you want. Some of those beliefs might even be justified.

In many religious discourses, they are seen as complementary rather than antagonistic. — Wayfarer

That's not quite the same thing as dependence. Faith being dependent on reason would mean that the reason came first and led by deduction to faith. Which is contrary to the testament of mystics and prophets, who come by their faith through revelation or an epiphany of some kind.
Reason being used to explain faith is a quite different matter.

Aquinas is an example. — Wayfarer

I know.

In the wider context of his philosophy, Aquinas held that human reason, without supernatural aid, can establish the existence of God and the immortality of the soul; for those who cannot or do not engage in such strenuous intellectual activity, however, these matters are also revealed and can be known by faith. Faith, though, extends beyond the findings of reason in accepting further truths such as the triune nature of God and the divinity of Christ. From reason, we can know that there is a God and that there is only one God; these truths about God are accessible to anyone by experience and logic alone, apart from any special revelation from God.

(A skeptic might wonder how come there was not one single reasoning person in all of Asia or Africa or the Americas to come to these self-evident realizations.)
His definition of reason is different from mine.
But even he doesn't claim that faith is based on empirical evidence.

From the side of the subject, it is the mind's assent to what is not seen: “Faith is the evidence of things that appear not”

i.e. Faith is a belief largely or wholly unsupported by empirical evidence.
And then reason can be twisted and pummelled into its service.

I think "reason" has almost nothing to do with it. — T Clark

Fine. I never discussed reason, except as a proposed component of sorting information. I think I do use reason as part of the process whereby I arrive at conclusions and decisions, and I suspect you do too, but if you don't believe that, you don't. It's not a critical difference between faith, based in little or no evidence, and trust or belief based on empirical experience.

When you consider such (if you believe such exists,) to be superior to yourself, in every way. This is how theists feel about their gods. — universeness

Except I didn't, don't and won't.
As to the moaning, I've heard louder.

No, fideism is not the same as faith. Fideism is the belief that faith is independent of reason, — Wayfarer

Okay. Most faith, then is dependent on reason? How?

But even so, there are Prostestant philosophers of religion (such as Alvin Plantinga) who scrupulously deploy rational arguments in defense of their faith

But not the other way around. The faith came first; rationalization a distant second. (And rarely convincing.)

You are subservient to such, if like benj96, you perceive or assign high credence, to some kind of already existent, omnipresent, self-aware, force/entity that may have been involved in our origins. — universeness

I have on several threads expressly said: There may, for all I know, be a Universal Consciousness, or Allness, or Creative Force or Whatever and people can call that God or the Great Pumpkin or anything they like, but if It doesn't care about you and you can't influence It, it's irrelevant, meaningless. I don't see how you can be subservient to something that makes no rules and requires nothing from you.

I was not trying to present the Star Trek character Janeway for a general critique. — universeness

It was a freebie, from SF fan to another. So is this: I mostly liked her, but she made some emotional decisions, when caution would have been a better guide than reliance on faith.

A pity you can't find the will to type something like, "Good stuff, I support that approach to dealing with 'fear,' completely." — universeness

Sorry. You be free you and I be cowardly me.

You've ignored the substance of my comment and focused on a language disagreement. — T Clark

That was the crux of the matter to which I was responding. I'll go back now and try to answer what I missed.

My claim is that most of what we know and how we make decisions is not based on reason but on the totality of our experience and learning. I guess this is something like the correspondence theory of truth except we don't compare our beliefs with the world but with a model of the world we carry around with us. — T Clark

What is that internal model built from, if not experience and learning of real facts, things and events in the real world? At some points during that construction, reason must have been involved in assessing which bits to keep and discard, which bits go where in the model. The sustained belief emerges from testing that internal model with the real world over time. If it doesn't correspond closely enough, your motors won't run and your chairs will collapse.

I came to recognize my initial understanding of a problem came from a mostly unconscious processing of the information I have studied, my understanding of my professional body of knowledge, and my general knowledge of life. In short, it was ultimately founded on an empirical but not rational basis. — T Clark

I don't see this is as a contradiction to

Faith is a belief largely or wholly unsupported by empirical evidence. — Vera Mont

Because it involves a factor variously designated salvation, release, mokṣa, or liberation. Whereas there’s nothing in the current concept of naturalism that corresponds to that. — Wayfarer

I don't know what "why" this answers, and don't recall asking. I commented generally on the characteristics of religion, as organized systems of practice relating to the supernatural. Unconditional belief and faith are not essential to one's identification with a religion; even the pastors pick and choose from the holy text. Regardless of the specific nature of the stick and carrot it offers, every religion has its rituals and a central theme, adhered to by its congregants.

That incidentally is fideism. — Wayfarer

AKA faith.

I have faith that this chair will support my weight. — Benj96

That is not faith; that is a belief formed through previous experience. It may prove to be incorrect in a given case, but the pattern will continue to hold for most examples. If one chair collapses, you'll test the next one before you sit in it. If the next ten hold up, you'll probably stop testing. If the next three collapse, you'll stop believing.
The first time he promises to repay the $10 you lend it to him, because he is your friend and has been generally truthful in your acquaintance, so you trust him. If he doesn't repay you, you're a bit reluctant to lend him any more. If he keeps up a pattern of borrowing and not repaying, you'll stop trusting him entirely.

But the faithful religionist keeps praying even after fifty prayers go unanswered. Keeps buying candles, even though the saint never grants his wish. Keeps calling on God's mercy, even when he's sitting on the dung-heap, bereft of all his family and goods, covered in boils.
And sometimes people have unjustified faith in other people or institutions - usually through the same wishful thinking that supports religious faith: the wife who rejects evidence that her husband is cheating; the mother who can't accept that her son robbed a liquor store; the American who just knows the constitution will safeguard the democratic process, the Canadian who is sure the police wouldn't arrest an innocent man.

Faith does not equal trust does not equal belief. Each word has a specific meaning.

If you can't take full ownership of your own existence. — universeness

You can pretend to be self-generated, I suppose. I'm aware that I owe my birth to all life as it evolved before me, and to my parents and the society that nurtured me as a helpless infant. I still owe my continued existence to the world that provides me air, water, food and shelter. I have no way to assess the exact amount of influence on my character and circumstances of each encounter, experience, book, conversation, each emotional connection with another being, but I acknowledge their influence - and mine on them.

If you need to make some belief connection to some external intent and influence outside of 'other people and other lifeforms,'

Not belief and not outside of "them". Where in post did you find either of those concepts?
I mean them, what I said: other people, other life forms, the earth, the universe.

then you are not truly free

That's what I've been saying: I never can be "truly free", until I'm dead.

BECAUSE, you (I don't mean you personally,) will always feel a subservience to that which you don't yet understand or know about.

Why? Connection and interdependence are not subservient, and I understand the world in which I belong about as well as I need to. I can never know or understand everything, which doesn't particularly bother me.

(Janeway was sometimes a damn fool. Feisty... but come on, In for a penny, in for a pound is a gambler's motto!)

Fear exists to be conquered! Theism, theosophism, fear of death, fear of the unknown, will be conquered by humans eventually, imo. — universeness

Fine. Good luck to them!

And yes, I think faith is just another name for intuition and religious faith is intuition for people who carry around a different model of the world than we do. — T Clark

Why would intuition need another name? Particular one that is usually taken to mean something quite different from what we usually mean by intuition, instinct, hunches or gut feelings?
Intuition is usually taken to mean a tentative or provisional conclusion drawn from incomplete or discontinuous evidence because precedents and patterns we recognize suggest what the picture should be. It's a conclusion arrived-at by jumping over the gaps. It's very useful as an indicator for fresh lines of inquiry, or pointing to aspects of a problem have not been sufficiently investigated.

Faith may well be based on a different model of the world, but it provides its owner with a certainty that precludes any further inquiry or room for doubt. An incontestable conclusion.

This is why, when our intuition, guesstimate or hunch turns out to be wrong, we eat a little crow and keep trucking. When we lose our faith, our whole model of the world and confidence in ourself crumbles.

Can you please elaborate on what you mean by "And then"? — Raef Kandil

I wondered what it is you want to discuss regarding faith and religion.

Faith is our interpretation of the life experience we are having and it is based on the mind and heart working together. — Raef Kandil

Though not equally hard, I imagine. Faith is a belief largely or wholly unsupported by empirical evidence.

Religion is based on text. — Raef Kandil

Not, it isn't. Religion is a formal system of tenets and practices with a supernatural entity or concept as its core. There may be texts supporting it, and these text may precede the formal organization or be produced within the organization. It is based on a shared or imposed philosophical view.

Faith uses text to interpret the experience. — Raef Kandil

No it doesn't. Experience-based faith needs no interpretation, but faith and subjective experiences may be chronicled and their interpretation may later becomes religious text.

And then?

That just makes me pissed off at all humans who can't OWN themselves! — universeness

Why is OWNERSHIP such a big issue with you? We can be of the universe, of the Earth, of our ecosystem, of our species, of our community, of our family and partake of the nested properties of those whole(s) - which is a great deal more than each of us could be or have as a stand-alone unit. But we cannot extricate ourselves from the support structure and matrix that produced us, contains and sustains us; we cannot be stand-alone units. It's not chains that bind us; it's threads of silk, which we each spin as well.

States, too. https://wpde.com/news/local/abortion-south-carolina-death-penalty-hb3549-unborn-child-homicide-assault-prenatal-equal-protection-act-roe-v-wade-fetal-heartbeat-bill-pro-life-choice-planned-parenthood-legislature-lawmakers-2-22-23 The Middle Ages is enjoying renewed popularity.