Thanks for that excellent insight — even if you did expose the lack of adequate research within my hastily thrown together article! Definitely could have expanded more on the subject of ‘belief’. The derivation of the word speaks volumes, as does its subsequent manipulation. Semantics are never totally secure and always subjected to the tides of culture or the whims of power (the term ‘liberal’ is a fitting example of this). I share your view that it’s important to view language diachronically as nothing happens (events, signification and so forth) in a vacuum.

One could also argue — on the subject of belief — that most of what constitutes our worldview (values, preconceptions) are in fact ‘beliefs’, as is what greases the cogs of our psychology. I am reminded of the wonderful quote from G.K. Chesterton, “Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity”. It seems passé but the fact remains: beyond the experience of our own existence nothing can be said to be an absolute certainty.

Quantum mechanics (as little as I understand it) has, in a sense, liberated us from the epistemological religiosity of ‘science’ that was set in motion by Newton et al. If anything Scientific materialism is itself a belief system with little grounding in modern physics (I’m sure you’re already aware of this!). Personally, I have resonated more with experiential ‘proof’ of the divine that I have for the multi-verse theory. Not that it’s not a sound theory!