There might well be an entire spectrum of reactions, both from those who rely on spirituality and beliefs, and those who don't.  From those who do rely on spirituality and belief, there might well be an entire spectrum of reactions.  On one hand, indignation and anger there their belief is characterized as an act of mental cowardice.  On the other, sadness and compassion for poor Colman, still wandering in the darkness of the material desert.

So of course i'll continue to believe you chose not describe people who believe in higher realities mental cowards.  (This of course does not mean there aren't mental cowards who do believe in higher realities, but the latter doesn't beget the former.)

Illustration.  i spend much of my time in the science of material reality, trying to answer such questions as:  why are the planetary gear teeth experiencing micro-pitting?; why are we seeing leading edge delamination or root cracking?; how can we better estimate fatigue or transient loads better?  We use the tools of engineering to get closer and closer to answering the questions.

So how do i explain this story?  My father had been quite ill, but i'd been informed he was doing much much better, and i didn't need to fly to visit.  Days later, normal day, mid afternoon, i've decided to bring my laundry downstairs, where i would mix it with water and various detergents under turbulent conditions in order to make them cleaner.  Like always, i take the basket out the door into the hallway, to begin my journey.  Suddenly i find myself yelling at the ceiling, very loudly, "Joe, let go!  Joe, Let Go!!

I don't conceptualize it yet, but i know what's just happened, despite my shock at suddenly discovering i'm yelling at the ceiling.  i bring the clothes basket back into the loft, and plop into my favorite recliner and drift into the ozone.  Half an hour later the call comes that my father had just passed on, fighting against the electric shocks.

To me that was direct inner empirical evidence of some higher reality.  That i choose to believe that someday physics will discover the mechanism used for the communication or transmission or whatever it was which most of science today doesn't even acknowledge, does not make me a mental coward.  That i "know" for certain there is a higher reality doesn't either.

But then, i've seen old indian guys break clouds away or bring rain.  Wish they could do load calculations.

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin