Yes. Semantics is a HUGE problem when talking with someone. Especially when contrasting ideas and it's the worst when we have only 'text' to try and communicate. Your definition of 'ki' above is ok, but I would argue that using the word 'ki' has other, I'll say, general meanings and it conveys an image of something you may not want to be conveying. i.e.
And for that very reason, I don't use the term 'ki'. Another usage of 'ki' is energy or power. Hap
kido, the way of coordinated power. This, so far as I know after several years of hapkido, is primarilly a referrence to the blending with an attacker's 'power' rather than directly opposing it. Kenshin mentioned this in an earlier post regarding methods of entering in aikido, who's meaning and kanji are shared by hapkido.
I don't use the word 'ki' when describing it to English speakers because, for one, I'm speaking English, and for another, I want them to know what I am talking about.
Sometimes people have told me they believe in a god. But when talking about it further, they simply say "Oh well, when I say 'god' I mean, you know, 'the universe'. Everything that exists" My response is normally " Why didn't you just say 'the universe' then? Using the other word is confusing people when all you had to say is you believe that the universe exists"
This is one of the problems that occur when Christians talk to people of cultures with different religions; the context of words like god and spirit are not the same. Words that get translated into 'demon' don't mean demon in the western sense. And you end up with with a person arguing against viewpoints that another person not only does not hold, but also may not even understand.
'and who knows, maybe they were'
Like I said to oaktree, above. We can't 'know' anything with this 'absolute certainty'. I am too open to the possibility of e.t. life. Evidence continues to side with that possibility. But if someone makes that claim, there's no reason to simply say " Welllllll, I don't 'know for sure' soooo, I don't know if I believe him or not"
In the abducted by aliens case, I simply don't care enough to actively disbelieve. My level of active skepticism only goes so far.
Like no touch KO's, I just don't care. I'm not paying to learn how to knock someone out from a distance and for those who do... well, you may see it as a huge issue, but I do not. There is a saying about a fool and his money. There will always be fools and there will always be hucksters to bilk them. Kind of a symbiotic relationship, as fools seem to need to have something foolish to invest in.
The only reason that I ever formed a definitive opinion on the subject was because I couldn't take it seriously after Dillman's explanation as to why it didn't work on the National Geographic reporter who volunteered to be KO'ed by one of Dillman's students. The explanation had to do with how pinky toe movement could cause the flow of ki to be interrupted and thus render the technique useless. At that point, I just had to dismiss it as larping. I view all of those 'healing services' done in churches in the same light.
I do try to keep an open mind about things. If someone says that they encountered extraterrestrial life, big foot, the Loch Ness monster, and other creatures of cryptozoology hey, I'm open to the idea that it
could happen. My primary obstacle to believing in such things is that people who were open to the idea have gone to great lengths to try to verify the claims made by witnesses and have come up with either nonsense or hoaxes. The amount of scrutiny that has been given to such phenomenon is such that after decades of 'sightings' of such creatures and subsequent investigations into said sightings, no credible evidence has been established. The conspiracy theories that are put forth by proponents don't help either.
Daniel
Our audience would always get a great laugh.
