"What's an objective belief but one that says the universe exists beyond your awareness of it? Otherwise, you would have to be god, because everything would exist relative to yourself. Could you will gravity away if you wanted to? What would happen if you did, not knowing the air would escape the atmosphere, or the Earth would leave the Sun's orbit and freeze? We're not the designers of the universe, so maybe it's a good thing we can't give unlimited power to ourselves."

"Some people already think they can," I replied, shrugging my shoulders. "And what if spirituality is just in our heads? Why not invent something you can be powerful in, something you can have fun with?"

"The supernatural is part of our nature, and it's normal for people to long for it, even if subconsciously; but, because we can't see it, it's tempting to project our fantasies onto the supernatural rather than try to discern what it already is. After a while, the misrepresentations cheapen 'spiritual stuff' to a point where it's easy to not take it seriously anymore."

"How can something that is real be made 'cheap'?"

Tom smiled in response to Aether's point. "That was quite a speech you made in there," he dinned. "It really left an impression."

"The man stopped when I entered. I took the opportunity to speak my mind. I forgot that my actions were improper."

"Maybe; but judging by the reaction, maybe it was the will of the Holy Spirit that led you to do that. Sometimes he'll take a service in a totally different direction than we meant. In fact, before you showed up, Pastor Amit said God led him to-"

Something changed. Through my third eye I saw the construct's data patterns shift and scramble.