Your intellectual cowardice is showing. It’s underscored by attaching an academic treatise that serves only as a cover for your decision to avoid dealing directly with the two items I raised in my previous response. Maybe framing those two items as questions will help (doubtful). Do flying horses exist? Are humans capable of reproducing asexually? If “yes” is the answer to both of these questions, I’d like to see the evidence to support your affirmative position. If “no” is the answer to these questions, bravo! It means you’re own your way to realizing that certain religious make-believe claims about the nature of the world — in this particular case, flying horses and parthenogenesis in humans — are nothing more than fantasy fiction details to prop up certain stories and beliefs that have nothing to do with reality. It’s often the case that true and false things can indeed be said about the world, and two true things just happen to be these: Horses don’t fly and asexual reproduction is impossible for humans.

I see from that academic paper than Taves, Asprem, and Ihm are fascinated by the “neurocognitive process of meaning making.” That’s a fine thing to be fascinated by. However, the neurocognitive underpinnings or process of meaning making doesn’t interest me. Instead, I’m interested to know if certain meaning-making beliefs have any correlation to the world as we live it and experience it. Seeing that flying horses don’t exist, that human parthenogenesis can’t happen, well, we’re left with the “meaning” that people apply to these tales (as to why people love to create such meanings like these is a discussion for another time and place). The only mystery here, to cite some other meaning-making beliefs, is why people truly believe in the existence of “Adam & Eve” or why people truly believe in the existence of flying invisible humanoids (“angels”) when there is no evidence to support the existence of such things.

Hey, I may as well make my two questions to you four questions: Do you believe that “Adam & Eve” existed? If so, why? Do you believe in flying invisible humanoids? If so, why? Never mind academics. I’m asking you these questions. I’d like to know what you believe about flying horses, parthenogenesis, Adam & Eve, and souls. I suppose I can now expect another dodge of some kind from you. Another academic treatise perhaps? Oh well. You can’t say that I didn’t try to get you to open up. I’m getting ready to write my opening sentences to your likely forthcoming dodge: “See that? I asked you four direct questions and you didn’t answer them.”