57 quotes
We do have something of a story here, a true story, that we can work with religiously should we elect to do so.
Any global tradition needs to begin with a shared worldview — a culture-independent, globally accepted consensus as to how things are.
The Sacred Depths of Nature (1998)
We nurture our children selflessly. But we also recognize them as our most tangible sources of renewal — for a child, the world is always new.
The Sacred Depths of Nature (1998)
When I sing the hymns of faith in Jesus' love, I am drawn to their intimacy, their allure, their poetry. But in the end, such faith is simply not available to me.
The Sacred Depths of Nature (1998)
Life from nonlife, like wine from water, has long been considered a miracle wrought by gods or God. Now it is seen to be the near-inevitable consequence of our thermal and chemical circumstances.
The Sacred Depths of Nature (1998)
Sex without death gets you single-celled algae and fungi; sex with a mortal soma gets you the rest of the eukaryotic creatures.
The Sacred Depths of Nature (1998)
The biochemistry and biophysics are the notes required for life; they conspire, collectively, to generate the real unit of life, the organism.
The Sacred Depths of Nature (1998)
Patterns of gene expression are to organisms as melodies and harmonies are to sonatas.
The Sacred Depths of Nature (1998)
This mythos comes to us, often in experiences called revelation, from the sages and the artists of past and present times.
The Sacred Depths of Nature (1998)
I have no choice but to pour these capacities and needs into earthly relationships, fragile and mortal and difficult as they often are.
The Sacred Depths of Nature (1998)
To take the universe on — to ask Why Are Things As They Are? — is to generate the foundation for everything else.
The Sacred Depths of Nature (1998)
We are, each one of us, ordained to live out our lives in the context of ultimate questions, such as:
Why is there anything at all, rather than nothing?
The Sacred Depths of Nature (1998)
I profess my Faith. For me, the existence of all this complexity and awareness and intent and beauty, and my ability to apprehend it, serves as the ultimate meaning and the ultimate value.
Throughout the ages, the weaving of our religious weft has been the province of our prophets and gurus and liturgists and poets.
The Sacred Depths of Nature (1998)
A religious naturalist is a naturalist who has adopted the epic as a core narrative and goes on to explore its religious potential, developing interpretive, spiritual and moral/ethical responses to the story.
These answers are by definition beliefs since they can neither be proven nor refuted. They may be gleaned from existing faith traditions or from personal search.
The Sacred Depths of Nature (1998)
When the responses elicited by the Epic of Evolution are gathered together several religious principles emerge that I can believe, serve as a framework for a global Ethos.
The Sacred Depths of Nature (1998)
Human consensus does not generate reality. Were it able to do so, the Sun would have taken to orbiting the Earth some time ago.
Without a hook, the new information falls on the floor.
The Sacred Depths of Nature (1998)
The tapestry maker first strings the warp, long strong fibers anchored firmly to the loom, and then interweaves the weft, the patterns, the color, the art.
The Sacred Depths of Nature (1998)