"… I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But as much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking...
The world is so exquisite... that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there’s little good evidence."—Carl Sagan, Parade Magazine, March 10, 1996
I was listening to (yet another) interview with the artist Nick Cave where the topic of spirituality was discussed in conjunction with the idea of stupidity. Expressing distaste of labelling the irrationality that is posited by those of the more strictly atheistic variety in regards to the conceptualisation of some higher universal power(s). Conceding that by admitting the rational standard, it's hard to argue against that framework, however in that, it misses the mark based on much of what is deemed irrational is so nonetheless and that's part of the metaphysical or abnormal framework; with the universe being so vast and a mystery which we humans only have a limited comprehension of even with and in spite of progress in scientific understanding. Going on then Cave and the host expand that obviously many things in say, Biblical lore, are disputable, but in the more hardline negations attempt to remove any sort of artistry or value in stories and concepts as absurd and implausible as they may be.
Even then in negation, from any point would add to these ideas to some extent. Be it an apprehension against the Abrahamic framework or Greco-Roman pantheons, whichever mythology one leans into or away from in such a vehement approach somewhat lends into stemming from or into it all the same— it's not so black and white. From the desecration of Olympian temples or Varg Vikernes torching churches something is taken out of what is disgusted. Now that is obviously not to say these things lend or detract credibility to improvable faiths as opposed to the reality of merely adding to their lineage or human history as a whole. Ultimately what is being said here is that there's value in both positions, even in spiritual pipe dreams and it's too broad of an assumption to make either way around without having to as much question one's own position in arguing for or against.
"All religions of a spiritual nature are inventions of man. He has created an entire system of gods with nothing more than his own carnal brain. Just because he has an ego and cannot accept it, he has had to externalize it into some great spiritual device which he calls 'God'...
... but no law states that an externalized god is necessary... He can no longer view himself in two parts, the carnal and the spiritual, but sees them merge into one, and to his abysmal horror, discovers they are only the carnal— AND ALWAYS WERE!"—Anton LaVey, The Satanic Bible
Being one in the same and as Madonna sung, "living in a material world," is the human and conscious life not a form of the universe experiencing itself? Would it not mean carnality is the highest form of spirituality? Is it not fascinating that this may seem to necessitate near-endless inquiry? How did evolution come to this point of cognitive capacity and why are we the only species to such a degree of development, what's the purpose of it? Even with those questions and by all accounts, gods and whatever sort of divinity as humanity prescribes them likely are in all ways that of projection of personal attributes— desires and dislikes—but even in that doesn't wholly disprove the vast cosmos from having undiscovered and yet to be understood forces. Whether they're divine, conscious or whatever they're around; whether they're interpreted in said metaphysical fashion is in the mind of the beholder given there is no official capital T truth that isn't to an extent debatable, and we only know as much in what we do not know.
All that to say what it seems the Bad Seeds frontman was expressing is similar to that of what is presented in The NeverEnding Story, whereby letting that adolescent imagination die and ceasing to genuinely ask what, how and why in place of a presupposed and more solipsistic form of self-deceit masked as skepticism or total authority is a sad oversight which goes nowhere.
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