Hi Ben:

I haven't seen your writing before. I saw the title and was prepared to assume, "Oh my, another dogmatic physicalist who only pretends to be interested in rational dialog but persists in an irrational belief in a completely unscientific assumption with no evidence whatsover."

Instead. I read an article by a philosophically mature, unusally thoughtful individual willing to do what VERY few religious people OR physicalists/materialists/naturalists are willing to do - remain courageously in an agnostic stance that does NOT succumb to the nihilistic dogma of postmodern deconstruction.

Very rare. Congratulations.

I have to say, in moments you come through almost as an philosopher of the Madhyamika orientation (the philosophy originating in Nagarjuna which had so much influence on the Chan tradition in China and Zen in Japan).