panbanisha

I am very proud to say that he's my older brother. He just celebrated his 100th birthday! For those not familiar, he just won the Nobel Prize for inventing the lithium battery. Way way way above my mental capacities!

We use the adjective religious and not the noun religion. I agree that it's not a religion in the sense that that word is usually used: a cannon of beliefs, a clergy, etc. We suggest that it's instead a religious orientation, centered on our science-based understandings of nature, that encourages us to interpret those understandings and respond to them spiritually (inward) and morally (outward, communal).

I am also an atheist, albeit I call myself a non-theist, and many of the world's traditions -- Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism -- have no supervening god. That I use the word religious doesn't mean that I'm a Theist, albeit I fully understand that many folks in western cultures have made that association. Not understanding where the New Agey part comes from and would appreciate your helping me out.

1. A vanilla naturalist" philosophy is held by all religious naturalists. We go on to explore its religious potential, which is non-theistic but includes interpretive responses (e.g. why is there anything at all rather than nothing?, a question most of us can't answer), spiritual responses (e.g. awe, assent, humility, gratitude, reverence), and moral responses to these understandings.

2. We come from a social lineage. In all such lineages the individual is challenged to balance self-interest with group cooperation. Non-human primates achieve this balance quite admirably, and I believe we have the capacity, albeit not always the will, to do likewise. Suggest some readings from Frans de Waal and Richard Wrangham.

For sure! I'd start with kindergarten, put a colorful timeline of the history of nature in the classroom surrounding the 4 walls near the ceiling, perhaps leaving gaps between early star formation and sun formation, and have the same timeline in every classroom after that. I would have this story explored at increasing levels of detail as the grades progress. Humans are narrative beings -- we live in stories, think in stories. An exercise on drawing and identifying the parts of a leaf is boring; the story of the history of leaves is intriguing.