There are a host of commonly used words in the English language which I like to call quasi-religious. Words like soul, spiritual, fate, mother nature, energy, and the like. These are words which have two sets of connotations, one which is spiritual and one which is largely secular, whose different meanings often get used interchangeably.
Take the soul. On the one hand there is a mystical connotation. It is something separate from the body, which may well survive…