concrete, scientific faith...this is an oxymoron

I agree, Jazzoctopus!...I put that image out there because I wasn't sure what Bryan was driving at, and I thought at times he was saying he could only have faith in things that were empirically evidenced...as it turned out that was just my confusion at interpreting his statements. As Bryan says, these faithful discussions can become pretty confusing! But Bryan cleared that up for me in his next response.

You talk about faith in the possibility that something magical will happen.

I concur with this part of your discussion, Bryan...so we've finally arrived at some common ground!