https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=4HlACnCFnWk
Okay, so how do I explain to my friends and family in a succinct way that I believe in religion but I don’t think heaven is a literal place? Everybody uses the word spiritual, okay? And so maybe try to get people to explain to you what they mean by spiritual because usually people will say something like spiritual is non-material things or something that’s not material, okay? And so maybe try to get them to talk a little bit about what that means, like what it is, what is spiritual. And so once you start to kind of talk about what something spiritual is, meaning that it’s not physical, then you can try to say something like, well, you know the word spiritual. It just means wind. Just means breath. And so what you’re talking about, these spiritual things, do you think that they’re in your physical breath? Do you think that when I blow on someone that I am, that that’s what it means by spiritual something? And most people will say obviously no, and then you can try to help them understand. Well, it’s because when you blow, that’s also speaking, speaking is air. That’s what it is. Speaking is an exchange of spirit because I’m talking to you and I’m not causing any physical change. I’m not beating you. I’m not giving you something. I’m speaking, but I’m affecting the world. I’m affecting you, your mind, affecting our relationship by speech. That’s spiritual. That is why we talk about spirituality being the way it is. And so heaven is the same. For the same, in the same way that you don’t think that spiritual just means my breath or it just means wind blowing in the same way heaven is a word that’s used to because air is in heaven. Wind is in heaven. Just like wind comes out of your mouth. Wind is also in heaven. And so it’s all these images to help you talk about things that are not material. And you can’t talk about things that are not material because they’re not material. You have to use analogies to talk about them. So I think that that’s probably the maybe the best way to help people understand at least this idea of heaven as not being a literal place and also the idea of the necessity of analogy to speak about spiritual things. And it doesn’t mean that it’s arbitrary. Most people will say, oh, well, then it’s arbitrary. Then it just be anything. It’s a very specific, very structured way of speaking that is perfectly coherent, which tries to talk about things that are that are invisible, things that are related to meaning, to identity, to the hidden things in the world, which makes them come together and makes them exist. And so that’s what that’s what that’s what spirituality is. And that’s also what heaven refers to.