His reservations about religion are mostly philosophical. For one thing the universe is really big. 100 billion galaxies each with 100 billion planets. Each habitable planet with maybe 100 billion people. A lot of people for god to keep track of. Also there is eternity. If we live forever with god it will be a long, long time. One could spend a billion years with every person that ever lived on all the habitable planets in all the 100 billion galaxies and it would take no fraction of eternity. Would one remember all those persons and the time spent with them? Where is this memory stored? People believe in an afterlife because the thought that we die with so much unresolved it too painful. We need eternity so justice can be accomplished. This is a little strange for Christians since one of Jesus' main points was don't demand justice which is another way of saying forgive others. I heard a man preach once about the power of a mother's love and how it is unthinkable that this dies when she does. In some ways it seems neater to have all the problems die when we do. Otherwise the problems of people who lived a thousand years ago are still percolating somewhere.
He has taken an interest in a language called toki pona. Only has 120 words. He learned the words easily. The hard part is figuring out how to use the 120 words to say complex things. Simple sentences like "I am angry" are difficult because there is no word for anger. There is "feeling" and "bad" and "powerful" so maybe anger is "powerful bad feeling" (or "pilin ike wawa" in toki pona). He has started taking notes in toki pona at church using the Greek alphabet. He is not sure if people are impressed or just think he is weird. Church is not that interesting so taking notes in a foreign language makes him feel like the time is less wasted. People give talks in church but he finds they say little. His term for this is "meta talks". A talk maybe nominally about loving your neighbor but few actual neighbors or actual loving is discussed. Instead the talks are largely theoretical about who qualifies as a neighbor and why ...
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