“I am a skeptic of the first order”
I doubt that. Everyone takes some things on faith.
For example, you say:
“the concept of divinity as handed down I find implausible...”
So you’ve considered that the “concept of divinity” is handed down but where does your idea of what is plausible or not come from? Are you skeptical about that? Or do you just take it on faith that reason is reliable?
“I doubt that. Everyone takes some things on faith.”
Words have meaning. One can be a skeptic and still have faith in something based on experience.
‘So you’ve considered that the “concept of divinity” is handed down but where does your idea of what is plausible or not come from?’
addressing the ‘concept of divinity’, I find it implausible because I do not accept the existence of the supernatural, or, alternately put, if it does exist, I reject that it has any effect on the natural world;that being the world we can see and experience with our senses...further, I note there hae been roughly 4500 differing deities recorded throughout history; American Protestants alone tally more than a dozen denominations, with widely differing theologies about how to properly worship the same godhead. This tells me that people are hardwired to seek supernatural explanations for what they cannot comprehend, and from that I draw the conclusion that man creates the god or gods that will fit a needed social construct, and then carries that forward for the progeny...
for me, plausability carries with a probing context, which seeks to reconcile sensate observations with explanations that accord with the senses; it makes no claim for certainty, nor do I...of course I cannot prove that no god or gods exist, just as I cannot prove the combination of natural forces that created existence; I rest my ‘plausability’ on the belief that no social conscience guides the earth in its daily jaunt around the sun, the searing harshness of the natural world convinces me of that...