Originally published at SacredRiver.org. You can comment here or there.

It is time to hear some different voices at Sacred River. You are invited to submit an essay regarding the following topic:

“Inspiration and the Natural World”

You are free to write a personal narrative, an exploration into American Transcendentalism, a treatise on physics, a photo essay, or pure fiction; you are only limited by your imagination. There is no length requirement.

The due date is November the 6th.

We will publish what we consider to be the best entries, but there is no maximum—considering how talented naturalists tend to be, we might end up publishing all of them! So let your voice be heard—inspire us!

Send your essay to submissions@sacredriver.org

Originally published at SacredRiver.org. You can comment here or there.

A wonderful “song” using bits from Carl Sagan’s Cosmos, featuring an appearance by Stephen Hawking. It is a lovely example of the awe, curiosity, and joy that nature can inspire.

Originally published at SacredRiver.org. You can comment here or there.

The following comment was written in response to a theist named Bridget from the last Dawkins post [here is her original comment]. I wanted to present this on its own page since I think it begins to address some core issues in Sacred River.

Where does the evil and good come from?

“Evil” and “Good” aren’t substances or states, but moral judgments on behaviors and ideas. All judgments are products of the human mind grounded in the evolutionary necessity of primates to live together in a reasonably harmonious way. We are beginning to find the basic building blocks of human ethics, which are related to such issues as fairness, resource/mate protection, incest avoidance, and reciprocal altruism (to name a few).

As in language, the moral building blocks have evolved into complex structures that are now largely culture-based. These structures form in every group (churches, schools, workplaces, clubs, and even whole cities and nations), and the majority of them are implicit, meaning they are unspoken mandates and rules of thumb that guide how group members behave and interact. When someone violates a rule, everyone knows it, even when that rule isn’t written down. Humans are simply wired this way.

Although the underlying purpose of morality is logical—the creation of social rules that allow humans to live together in groups—individual morals or moral sets are not always rational or even beneficial. At one time, for example, slavery was considered perfectly acceptable by many Americans and was even justified with the Bible. Many people would now consider slavery to be an unambiguous evil.

This is why there is a movement to push morals into a principle-based system rather than attempting a set of absolute rules. For example, increasing fairness and decreasing suffering are “good” principles, but what those look like will change along with a changing society, just as the acceptability of slavery changed with the Civil War. This is but one benefit of a non-theistic perspective—we can approach goodness from a reasonable and compassionate place rather than by attempting to fulfill rigid decrees, regardless of their relevance or logic.

Where does the “self” come from? And please don’t say the self is a set of neuronal connections…that is ridiculous and has not been proven.

The experience of self does indeed stem from complex neural nets in the brain, although the total self certainly includes the whole body. This might seem ridiculous to you, but there is a great deal of empirical evidence for it (and no evidence to the contrary). True, we learn more about the creation of self all the time as we learn more about the brain, but it isn’t the mystery you are making it out to be.

What we call the self is constructed from many psycho-neurological mechanisms, including temperament, emotions, personality (a la the Big Five), subjective perception and awareness, motivations and bodily needs, working memory and long-term memory, worldview and heuristic sets (e.g. social roles), and what you would call thinking. The self is an emergent phenomena that arises from the integration of all these functions, each of which are borne in the brain and derive from a combination of genetics and experience, and shifts according to environmental priming (a great example of this is an experiment with Chinese-Americans: one group was shown American symbols and the other Chinese symbols: each group then interpreted a single image, with the first group preferring a Western concept of individualism, with the other preferring an Eastern communal perspective. So based on how they were primed, different “selves” came to the fore).

To learn more, I strongly recommend “The Developing Mind” by Dan Siegel.

I’m afraid you might be falling for what our ancient ancestors fell for: the assumption that anything we don’t fully understand in nature must be due to a supernatural agent. It’s as if to say that if something in nature is amazing and beyond our comprehension, it couldn’t have “just happened”. But why not? There is no reason to think that anything in nature required an external agent, and the more we learn about the universe, the more we must conclude that indeed no agent could have caused any of it. Nature is self-sufficient; that is part of its majesty.

Originally published at SacredRiver.org. You can comment here or there.

The abundance of even non-religious conspiracy theories is yet one more reason to challenge faith-based thinking. But it isn’t all roses…

Originally published at SacredRiver.org. You can comment here or there.

Pascal’s Wager essentially states that it makes the most sense to have faith in the Biblical God because if he is real then a believer will earn entry into Heaven while a nonbeliever will suffer for eternity in Hell, whereas if God is not real, both lose nothing (unless to say the believer loses his sense of reason, which seems a fair stake for the chance of eternal bliss). The matrix looks like this:

	Believer	Non-believer
God is real	Eternal Bliss	Eternal Pain
God is not real	[Reason]	no loss

Pascal’s Wager is frequently offered by modern Christians as justification for faith, even though Pascal himself said that the wager is only enough to consider finding faith. Nevertheless, they will say,  “You’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain…and if you’re wrong, then Hell awaits you!” There are, of course, many logical shortcomings in this wager. For example, it doesn’t include the possibility that:

* The Christian god isn’t the correct deity
* God’s judgment is arbitrary
* God might also reward honest unbelief or punish dishonest belief
* Belief isn’t a necessary or adequate criteria for entry into Heaven

So, let’s take these issues into consideration in the following table, assuming the religion is Christianity with a “good” non-believer and an undefined believer:

	Undefined Believer	Good Non-believer
Christian God is real; only requires faith	Heaven	Hell
Christian God is real; requires faith plus good acts	Heaven or Hell	Hell
Some God is real; only requires good acts	Heaven or Hell	Heaven + Reason
God is real; but arbitrary or not Christian	Unknown	Unknown
God is not real	Squandered life	Reason

When we add these choices, then the best choice is to be a good non-believer, because she has the best possible outcome—she gets both reason and Heaven if God is real and rewards those who act good. Likewise, in this choice and the choice where God is not real, the non-believer gets to have a fulfilling life of doing good deeds, without any unnecessary emotional, physical, or material sacrifices in the name of faith.

If the believer is good, then he has two extra chances to get to Heaven, but no one can know for certain what qualifies as “good enough”. The undefined believer might be “good enough” in choice #3, but has nevertheless made unnecessary sacrifices that the non-believer did not make. If God is not the Christian god, then there is equal risk of the unknown, making a rational and good life that much more worthwhile. If God is not real, then the believer does not have zero loss: he has, as Dawkins’ writes, squandered his “precious time on worshiping him, sacrificing to him, fighting and dying for him, etc.” And Hell becomes less one-sided, since the believer might get there if he is not adequately good (e.g. the mass murderer who repents in the gas chamber).

On top of all this, we then need to take into account the likelihood of God’s existence. There are already many arguments out there about this, but I will keep it at this: God isn’t necessary. God is not necessary to explain the origin of the universe, universal laws and processes, or how we humans came to be. There is no question in science that is best answered with “God”. This doesn’t prove his non-existence, but it does make it very, very unlikely, especially when we consider the countless number of gods humans have created and the complete lack of observable evidence for any of them. Virtually every universal theory that has arisen from religion has been shown to be wrong; why not just admit the concept of supernatural dualism is wrong altogether? With this in mind, we have to put the choices on a scale, with the existence of God being very unlikely and the non-existence of god being very likely.

The fundamental problem with all of this—as has been pointed out by non-theists many times before—is that one cannot be threatened into genuine belief. Faith requires that I honestly think that something is true. Any fear of being wrong does not, in itself, provide evidence that something is real.

And finally, I present my own Naturalist Wager:

If there is a creator God, then he created the universe and the world and humans. He also created your brain that is able to observe and reason and feel compassion. Looking at and learning about His creation using direct observation and empirically-based reason would honor His gifts, while making the world a better place for every human would honor the heart He gave you. If a loving creator God is real, it is reasonable to believe that He will reward you for your faith in Him and for the use of the reason and compassion He gave you. If God is not real, then you will have made excellent use of your life by fulfilling your ability to learn about and find wonder in the natural world and by making life a bit more worth living for those who remain.

Originally published at SacredRiver.org. You can comment here or there.

In his latest book, The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins presents his own Alternative Ten Commandments. I enjoyed the list so much I wanted to share it here. [Edit: it has been pointed out that this list was not written by Dawkins, but only offered in his book. Whoever wrote it, I think it is a great list of principles. EDIT #2: It appears that the original list can be found here, written by one "Ebonmuse" who authors the site Daylight Atheism.]

1. Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you

2. In all things, strive to cause no harm

3. Treat your fellow human beings, your fellow living things, and the world in general with love, honesty, faithfulness and respect.

4. Do not overlook evil or shrink from administering justice, but always be ready to forgive wrongdoing freely admitted and honestly regretted.

5. Live life with a sense of joy and wonder

6. Always seek to be learning something new

7. Test all things; always check your ideas against the facts, and be ready to discard even a cherished belief if it does not conform to them.

8. Never seek to censor or cut yourself off from dissent; always respect the right of others to disagree with you.

9. Form independent opinions on the basis of your own reason and experience; do not allow yourself to be led blindly by others.

10. Question everything

Originally published at SacredRiver.org. You can comment here or there.

There are already plenty of good overviews of religious naturalism, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to have one more. It certainly doesn’t stack up to the work of Jerome Stone [PDF], and I’ll probably update it over time, but I think it’s healthy to have multiple viewpoints that address a core set of ideas. Of course, I am no expert on religious naturalism, so I hope I can be forgiven a certain lack of unique insight or academic sophistication. For me, however, it is exactly this kind of exercise that helps develop a clear articulation of values and beliefs, an exercise that I consider to be central to my own personal progress. And you, dear reader, are naturally invited to comment and make suggestions.

         

Originally published at SacredRiver.org. You can comment here or there.

It is wonderful to see articles and essays explaining the basics of science, especially in reference to religion and superstition. This one, titled “I Want to Believe: What Skepticism Reveals about Science“, is written by Michael Shermer and appears in the latest issue of Scientific American. You are encouraged to go read the whole thing.

Shermer writes:

What I want to believe based on emotions and what I should believe based on evidence does not always coincide… I conclude that I’m a skeptic not because I do not want to believe but because I want to know. I believe that the truth is out there. But how can we tell the difference between what we would like to be true and what is actually true? The answer is science.

Science is a method, not a set of dogmatic beliefs. As Shermer explains, “Science begins with the null hypothesis, which assumes that the claim under investigation is not true until demonstrated otherwise. [...] The null hypothesis means that the burden of proof is on the person asserting a positive claim, not on the skeptics to disprove it.” Of course, as he points out above, many people choose to see evidence where none exist because they have an emotional drive to believe. Or they wedge the supernatural into scientific gaps, assuming that “if science cannot explain X, then [the supernatural] explanation for X is necessarily true.”

This is where the understanding of science gets a little murky. Shermer continues:

To be fair, not all claims are subject to laboratory experiments and statistical tests. Many historical and inferential sciences require nuanced analyses of data and a convergence of evidence from multiple lines of inquiry that point to an unmistakable conclusion. Just as detectives employ the convergence of evidence technique to deduce who most likely committed a crime, scientists employ the method to determine the likeliest explanation for a particular phenomenon. Cosmologists reconstruct the history of the universe by integrating data from cosmology, astronomy, astrophysics, spectroscopy, general relativity and quantum mechanics. [...] Once an inferential or historical science is well established through the accumulation of positive evidence, however, it is just as sound as a laboratory or experimental science.

This is why the Theory of Evolution is so compelling…although we cannot observe all the mechanics of evolution happening in real time, the mountain of positive, harmonized evidence over multiple domains of study allows for a high degree of confidence, especially since the theory allows for testable predictions. And yet, the null hypothesis is still out there, waiting…the moment we find a reliable fossil of a dinosaur with the remains of a homo sapiens in its belly, science will admit that it’s time to go back to the drawing board. But—and this is where many theists get lost—it is not up to science to disprove that that fossil exists, or that God exists in our knowledge gaps, or that invisible pink unicorns roam the forests. Until positive evidence is given, there is no reason, other than emotional desire, to consider them to be true.

Shermer sums it up nicely:

Which one you choose depends on your tolerance for ambiguity and how much you want to believe. For me, I remain in sublime awe of the great Unknown.

         

Originally published at SacredRiver.org. You can comment here or there.

This Discover essay by Sean Carroll is a brief yet fantastic introduction to the basics of science and its relationship with religion. Here is one of the best definitions of science I have ever read:

Science constructs theories, and then compares them to empirically-collected data, and decides which theories provide better fits to the data. The definition of “better” is notoriously slippery in this case, but one thing is clear: if two theories make the same kinds of predictions for observable phenomena, but one is much simpler, we’re always going to prefer the simpler one. The definition of theory is also occasionally troublesome, but the humble language shouldn’t obscure the potential reach of the idea: whether we call them theories, models, hypotheses, or what have you, science passes judgment on ideas about how the world works.

He also sums up beautifully the reason so many scientists are non-theistic (see this study):

There’s no obstacle in principle to imagining that the normal progress of science could one day conclude that the invocation of a supernatural component was the best way of understanding the universe. Indeed, this scenario is basically the hope of most proponents of Intelligent Design. The point is not that this couldn’t possibly happen — it’s that it hasn’t happened in our actual world. In the real world, by far the most compelling theoretical framework consistent with the data is one in which everything that happens is perfectly accounted for by natural phenomena.

I would add that the more we do find out about the workings of the universe and the gaps in our knowledge shrink, the less likely it becomes that supernatural forces will be found to play a role. Ultimately, ideas like god, spirits, and occult forces simply aren’t very useful in helping us understand how the world actually works.

As a matter of  speculation, I posit that as science continues to naturalize the universe, many people more firmly cling to faith because of two things: anxiety and identity. (I’ll talk about the first for now, saving the latter for another post). The existence of a beneficent god and the promise of eternal life are powerful balms to existential angst. While it is easy to throw snark at beliefs in the supernatural, we would do well to recognize the very real anxiety that being alive entails. If people have been raised with faith as a way of coping with it, it is unreasonable to expect people to simply give that up.

Here is my wheelchair analogy (and please know that I have nothing but respect for our wheelchair-bound brothers and sisters): take a hypothetical group of people who were raised in wheelchairs from the day they are born. There is nothing inherently wrong with their legs, but this group believed it best to get around via wheelchair; they simply stopped questioning the practice and relied upon the Wheelchair Scripture to justify and guide them. By a certain age, the idea of not being in a wheelchair becomes a frightening thought…walking, running, and dancing seem intolerably difficult and dangerous. Eventually, their legs become atrophied and it would take a great deal of effort even to stand upright; considering the (apparent) comfort and safety of the wheelchair, learning to walk appears ludicrous and incomprehensible.

Non-theists have learned to “walk” and often look at the “Wheelchairists” with bewilderment…”Why can’t they they just get up on their feet like we do? Look, it’s great to walk and run and dance!” But looking at the world without the existence of their supernatural models is anxiety-provoking, and their innate ability to see nature alone with wonder and gratitude has been atrophied. Science is, in essence, killing their all-powerful Caretaker and taking away their eternity of bliss. While it is important to challenge those beliefs, it is equally important to have compassion for the anxiety that provokes.

In their desperation to hold on to their wheelchairs, many theists refuse to understand the nature of science. This is why pieces by Sean are so important, because they give non-theists a way of explaining science using relatively accessible language. But more than that, being able to talk about the magnificence of nature as informed by science can act as “walking lessons”, at least for those who would like to get out of the chair but can’t get past the fear of the loss of the support.

         

Originally published at SacredRiver.org. You can comment here or there.

Albert Einstein once said, “Religion is concerned with man’s attitude toward nature at large, with the establishing of ideals for the individual and communal life, and with mutual human relationship.” To this I would only add that religion is also concerned with promoting the experience of transcendence. These four things—attitudes, ideals, relationships, and transcendence—are, put together, best served in a religious context. Of course, it is really the last item that tips the scale towards religion; exploring things like science or philosophy might inspire fascination, curiosity, and thought, but only for a tiny few might they lead to a transcendent state of mind.

This is a main reason why religion exists: many people have a strong drive towards transcendence. Song, dance, chanting, meditation, ritual, and other activities continue to be life-enhancing for many people, even when they do not contain an ounce of supernaturalism. The experience of stepping out of one’s “mundane”, every-day state of mind is key to what we call meaningful profundity, being the sense of deep significance and connectivity which lies at the heart of religious experience.

The movement known as Religious Naturalism has yet to move substantially beyond theory into practice, although it has started to establish the attitudes and ideals that Einstein described. Sacred River, of course, has its own outline for these things, including the Spiritual Streams and the Four Virtues, as well as our understanding of progressivism and the utility of allegoricalism. But we are far from having an established set of practices. This will, hopefully, happen organically over time.

As a general point of observation, it is past time for mainstream religion to stop offering a few things that are not on Albert’s list, especially those things related to explaining phenomena. Religion has a terrible track record of providing accurate descriptions of the material universe and its multitude of processes. Some of the worst abuses of modern religion, such as campaigns against birth control or gay marriage, are often predicated on factually false models of reality. Worse, religion tends to offer what it cannot possibly deliver on, whether it be a miraculous cure for disease, an escape from poverty, or even a never-ending life of eternal bliss. People have a natural need for a sense of control and comfort—after all, life is difficult and often unfair, painful and confusing. Many religions take advantage of this by soothing the needy with fantasies, resulting in an overall decreased ability for people to think critically, to face the natural world on its own terms, and to cope effectively with the existential angst inherent in human life. That nearly half of American adults believe the Earth is only 6000 years old is indicative of the profoundly toxic effects of deistic religion’s efforts to provide causal accounts of the natural world.

In light of this, Sacred River takes the position that the Religious Naturalist movement has several ethical obligations:
1) to advocate for science as being the most reliable way of knowing about the world,
2) to increase fairness, economic opportunity, knowledge, and well-being (both personal and ecological), and
3) to promote naturalistic means for people to cope with the inescapable agonies of life.

I hope that this list might lead to a wider discussion about Religious Naturalism and the obligations implied by our shared worldview. After all, Einstein said that religion is, in part, about ideals. Perhaps it is not too far-fetched to hope that we might aspire towards an ever-more courageous, integral, beneficent, and open society grounded in a healthy combination of scientific understanding and transcendent inspiration.

         

Originally published at SacredRiver.org. You can comment here or there.

It has a been a number of weeks since Sacred River has seen a new post and for that I apologize. Alas, life got in the way. Fortunately, it has all been good changes, but they have nevertheless left little time for writing essays.

But that does make me think of something to mention. This is more of an invitation to ponder rather than a full examination, but that itself makes the topic relevant. One of the core themes of Sacred River is the notion that spirituality is not a distinct branch of living, such as family or education, but is infused into all parts of life. From this perspective, spirituality is an approach or orientation towards living, informing everything we do. Yes, there are times we can set aside for specifically religious activity, but those events should ideally enrich or expand upon one’s everyday spiritual self.

I mention this because my own life has been filled lately with the pragmatic and common—travel, work, school, relationship, home. If I were to list out everything I’ve been doing the last few weeks nothing really stands out as exceptional or unusual, much less spiritually transcendent. While transcendence is a perfectly acceptable spiritual goal, it is not one of our key aims, which include meaning, fulfillment, and joy. Part of what I’ve been trying to do recently is to take time each day to examine all the things I’m doing and to put them into perspective. By that, I mean I try to see things holistically, to see all these mundane activities as parts of a larger and far more magnificent whole. In doing so, I’m reminded of my place within the order of things and of the splendor that is ordinary life.

There are times when we need to disrupt, to challenge, and to grow. There are also times to celebrate and bask in the joy of living. And yet in other times, it is all we can do just to cope and keep our heads above water. How we approach all of these times determines to a very large degree what our life ends up meaning and how we perceive it. A significant part of spirituality involves this very question of how we approach things like disruption, growth, celebration, relaxation, and coping. Frankly, I have nothing very wise to say about what such an approach should be—that is ultimately up to each person to decide based upon their own genuine sense of self. But at the very least I can remind you that we have choices about such things. And that we have such choices at all is what makes us such astounding, miraculous creatures.

         

One of common elements of theistic religion is the belief in a beneficent force that is aware of and concerned about individual humans. I assume that people have a wide range of emotions about this force, from fear to awe to comfort. We non-theists lack faith in such a supernatural consciousness and so we are absent of the anxiety or hope of our actions, thoughts, and prayers being weighed on celestial scales.

But Nature is not without its forces, blind to the welfare of humans as they might be. It is possible now to understand the world in a way that is far different than the clockwork materialists of the Enlightenment. Religious Naturalists no longer see the universe as being filled with just a bunch of matter knocking about the proverbial pool table. Rather, we can see an intricate web of subtle processes, a metaphorical river of being and creation.

One of the most profound processes we know about is natural selection. Although it is completely free of intention, natural selection is what made humans and every other living thing possible. That it has no consciousness behind it does not lessen the magnificent power of it; if anything, that makes natural selection just that much more awe inspiring. Adding in a deific designer explains nothing—it merely takes away from its splendor as the driving force behind evolution.

A related process that we are only just beginning to understand is emergence. Stated simply, emergence describes the creation of more complex phenomena out of the interactions between less complex phenomena. We can observe a hierarchy of organization, the ultimate base of which is the soup of elementary particles (quarks, gluons, elections, etc). What is interesting is that at each new level of complexity (from, say, particles to atoms to molecules, and so forth), novel things happen. New, unpredictable properties arise, where laws that exist at one level of complexity do not apply at lower levels. Really, it’s an astounding scientific concept.

We are, of course, continuing to increase our understanding of these forces as our scientific knowledge grows. We no longer need a supernatural consciousness to understand how the Cosmos works or how it’s possible for humans to exist. Nor are we, without gods and spirits, left only with a universe of dead matter to ponder nihilistically. Rather, science paints Nature as a dynamic, evolving set of processes capable of creating novel, increasingly complex phenomena. In other words, the universe isn’t a collection of things so much as one of processes between interacting properties.

It must be admitted, we lose something by a lack of faith in supernatural beings that are concerned with humans. We lack the dream of a blissful life spent with loved ones for all eternity. We lack the hope that comes from praying for a celestial Hand to take away pain and injustice. We lack the pleasure of thinking we are at the center of things, that we are somehow important in the grand scheme, or that a supreme destiny awaits us. We lack the comfort of believing that Someone is looking out for us. We lack the certitude and righteousness that comes from having moral behavior codified in scripture.

We might not need God to explain things anymore, but for many, God’s absence would leave a void that would not be easy to fill. There is no simple replacement for the hope, specialness, and certitude that faith brings, especially for folks who live with hardship or fear. But I maintain that what replacements we do have available to us are far more valuable! Critical thinking, rational optimism, self efficacy, and even the Four Virtues—courage, integrity, beneficence, and openness—might all take more effort than faith but potentially have a far greater return. Unlike faith, those skills and perspectives are not dependent on unreal things. They are built upon natural human capabilities.

A lived Religious Naturalism is not easy. It’s advanced spirituality. We reject the shortcuts of faith in favor of developing a worldview grounded in reality. We feel awe, reverence, and humility in the face of a dynamic, emergent universe that can create a neutron star as well as a Leonardo da Vinci. We recognize our inherent, natural power to experience optimism, compassion, and serenity. We humans have within us all we need to live meaningful, fulfilling, and joyous lives. And to that I say, Amen.

My yearly post outlining my journal's rules.

Essentially, there is only one real cost to having my journal remain public—it must remain a place for adult behavior.

I do not mind disagreement. You are welcome to comment on my journal and offer an opinion different than or contradictory to mine. If you are so inclined, please note the three standing rules:

1) You must be respectful of me and other commenters (i.e. no personal attacks or aspersions).
2) You must have a willingness to exchange information, meaning listening to it as much as giving it.
3) You must engage with good faith, meaning the object is not to twist or use my words to attempt injury to me or another.

EDIT! I've decided to add a fourth rule:

4) Verbal diarrhea is not allowed. Granted this is a bit vague and so will initially earn a warning, but most people can recognize this kind of comment when they see it.

Clear violations of any of these rules will get your comments deleted. Repeated violations will get you banned. If a situation flares up, I might ban for a short period for things to cool off. Asking me later to unban will likely succeed.

That is all. Have a nice day.

A virtuous person is one who intentionally seeks personal excellence. Of course, what defines excellence has been a topic of contemplation and debate for the entire history of humankind. Plato recognized four virtues: temperance, prudence, fortitude, and justice. Christianity looks to traits such as faith, love, meekness, and chastity as important virtues. Submission to the will of God is the central virtue in Islam. The Buddha extolled compassion. Humanity, filial piety, and loyalty are Confucian virtues.

In all, there are countless traits and actions that world religions and cultures have put forth as exemplars of excellence. Starting with this foundation, psychologist Martin Seligman and his colleagues have outlined a list of human strengths and traits that potentially lead to well-being—knowledge, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence, each of which have a sub-list of yet more traits. No doubt research will continue to look into the scope and outcomes of various human traits.

Sacred River offers its own system of four cardinal virtues: Courage, Integrity, Beneficence, and Openness. These are not presented as immaculate virtues in the sense of a divine or revealed ideal. Rather, they are ways of being, both in action and attitude, in service to our central spiritual aim—leading a more meaningful, fulfilling, and joyous life.
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Needless to say, I am thrilled that Obama was sworn in yesterday as our 44th president. Although I expect to be frustrated and even disappointed by him from time to time, I am ultimately hopeful and enthusiastic about our future. In his speech, he said a couple of things that I really appreciated.

The first was his mention of “non-believers”. Considering that about 13% of Americans are non-theists, it is about time that we were acknowledged. It will be a long time before being non-theistic will no longer be a political liability. But that journey starts with the understanding that we exist and that, unlike popular misconception, we are not minions of Satan, we are not morally rudderless, we are not withering in existential misery (at least not more than anyone else), and we vote.

The second was his statement that science will be restored to its proper place. It has been painful to watch the last administration treat science as an inconvenience at best, tossed aside whenever it conflicted with conservative ideology. But as many are now finally realizing, ignoring scientific data doesn’t make reality go away. Having a president who actually respects science is a huge breath of fresh air, indicated by Obama’s excellent appointment of Steven Chu as Secretary of Energy. Let’s hope that this is but the start of a grand revival of science in America

Ever since FDR first introduced prayer at the inaugural ceremonies in 1933, they have each and every one invoked a monotheistic god. A strong case can be made to say that including such prayers is inappropriate at one of our chief secular rituals. Nevertheless, they are here to stay for the foreseeable future. This year, with Rick Warren, the anti-gay pastor of the Saddleback mega-church, set to give the opening prayer at Obama's inauguration, the issue has grown in significance. His support of California's Prop 8, which strips the right of marriage from gays and lesbians, makes his participation especially abhorrent.

Since it is safe to assume that his prayer (and those of the other religious speakers) will again call on a personal Father-God, I wanted to write my own benediction from a naturalistic orientation. The following is hardly poetic or memory-worthy, but I will be reading it during Warren's invocation, dreaming of a time when supernatural beliefs no longer have a place in our secular life.

---

On this historic day we inaugurate our new President and Vice-President, that solemn ceremony epitomizing the secular process of our enduring democracy. We offer our gratitude to those great minds that courageously embarked upon the American experiment, who had faith in the essential goodness of humanity and envisioned a country whose every citizen might equally enjoy the freedom, security, and opportunity that the rule of law might provide. We further give thanks to all those individuals, both civic and military, who have sacrificed all they have to forward the fortunes of our nation.

On this day, we grant unto President-elect Obama, Vice-President-elect Biden, as well as their families and members of their administration our support and our hope that they will find the strength and wisdom they will need in the coming years. In light of the challenges we as a nation face, may they never fall short of the fierce courage, unwavering integrity, compassionate beneficence, and broad open-mindedness they must have to fulfill the potential of their profound duties.

Despite the darkness of these days, we recognize that this can also be a wondrous time, a time of great renewal and revitalization. We must now reaffirm our dedication to a culture of social responsibility and environmental stewardship. Once again we must look to our own resources to refill the national vault, not only with economic prosperity, but just as importantly with our wealth of humanity—education, the arts, science and green technology, health care, and a new age of justice, liberty, and progress. The world is ready to look to us once again, not only as moral leaders, but as a partner in the struggle for a healthy planet and a lasting peace, and we must not, we shall not fall short of these sacred obligations.

Let us mark this day as a turning point in the journey towards the splendor that is our potential, a potential measured by our dedication to a world without poverty, injustice, or fear. A world where all humankind can embrace each other as the Great Family we truly are, and live as one on this divine earth as virtuous and responsible citizens.

One of the central tenets of Sacred River states that intentional change is a moral imperative. This is grounded in the idea that the one thing that makes us most human is intentionality, the ability to plan, reflect, imagine, and act with forethought. We can choose to think and behave in ways that our primordial disposition might otherwise prefer. Further, we have the power to learn; one's store of knowledge and skills is never fixed, even if age makes the process more challenging over time. And because our choices have consequences not only for one's personal well-being, but also in regards to our social and ecological impact, we have an obligation to "educate the will" as Emerson put it.

The Second Virtue within Sacred River is Integrity. One aspect of integrity is genuineness, which can be interpreted as embodying one's most authentic self. Of course, this "self" is not an unchanging relic, but an emergent process of being. There are many keys to achieving this flow of genuineness, but perhaps the most salient is self-knowledge or self-awareness. It is no small thing to be able to pay attention to the self, to one's quiet motivations, expectations, beliefs, assumptions, fears, values, and all the obscured habits of the mind, to follow the tangled thread in the cognitive labyrinth that leads to our manifested actions and feelings. Any increase in such awareness can be considered another step in the journey of personal growth.

It is true that there is value in the knowing alone, but the true value is in using awareness of the self to change. One metaphor for this is Michelangelo's description of sculpting, when he said that a statue is already fully formed within the stone, and that his job was merely to chip away the remainder. If it is true that a genuine self exists within each of us, then our job is to chip away at those things that prevent fully authentic expression.

Now then, all of these things are potentially disruptive—self-knowledge, chipping away at the inauthentic, and even genuine expression. By disruptive, I mean that  processes within ourselves, our daily lives, and our social systems are interrupted and become more chaotic or unpredictable, often resulting in anxiety. For most people, disruption isn't pleasant. This makes perfect sense—our survival has long depended on our (assumed) ability to control our environment and to predict outcomes. As such, well-being cannot be long maintained in a disruptive environment.

Considering how life is already chaotic enough without our intentionally throwing a wrench in the works, it makes sense that the idea of harmony, balance, peace, or tranquility would be a common theme in nearly every religion. Sacred River also supports these basic aims and recognizes their many values; after all, another aspect of Integrity is maintaining an optimal balance between all elements of the self.  Outside of oneself, harmony in the social and ecological environment is vital to establishing fairness and sustainability. It goes without saying that finding peace and contentment in one's life can be a source of great spiritual satisfaction.

The core aims of Sacred River are meaning, fulfillment, and joy. You may notice that tranquility is not on that list. This is because, regardless of its many positive virtues, tranquility is not an effective tool to achieve the kind of world for which we are working. Now then, one might experience tranquility as a byproduct of fulfillment, and no one here would begrudge that. But we are progressives here at Sacred River—we hold that things can always improve, and sustained contentment often inhibits the motivation needed to bring about change.

To be clear, I am not proposing we need to live a life of perpetual disturbance, or that it is good to induce chaos for its own sake. What I am arguing is that if we are going to aim for progress—both personally and socially—then we need to make friends with disruption. We each need to find ways to harness the power of disruption. A forest needs fires on occasion to stay healthy, and the same can be said of human life. Fulfillment and genuineness require that we challenge ourselves to break out of unnecessary habits of the body and mind, to learn new knowledge and skills, and to try novel ways of thinking and living. This requires the courage to leap into the unknown, the humility to realize that we don't have all the answers, and the curiosity to wonder what change might bring.

Crossposted from SacredRiver.org

2009 promises to be a year of momentous change. The rise of progressivism is long overdue, although too many Democrats are still under the sway of Reaganomics and general conservative thinking. The country, however, is ready for something new and if enough pressure from progressive groups is kept up, the incoming Obama administration might break the conservative chains that have shackled America for the last three decades. Although we can gripe about specific policies (and we will), overall we can look forward to a renewed respect for knowledge, science, education, health, and sustainability, all of which were largely abandoned in 1980. If we are lucky, we will also see major reform in corporate culture and government corruption through a resurgence of an ethic of responsibility.

No doubt about it, we have a mountain of problems to fix—two wars, an economic meltdown, a broken healthcare system, a melting planet, decaying infrastructure, and civil rights under siege. Although so many complex problems cannot be blamed on any one cause, I believe that a major component has been the abandonment of the idea of the common good, replaced by the promotion of selfishness, greed, and radical individualism. In fact, the notion of civic cooperation for secular purposes (religious efforts have been excepted) has been long attacked as communistic and fascist. One must admire the propaganda efforts put forth to convince so many Americans that when a tiny group of wealthy elites do well we all do well, and when they hurt we all hurt. Large cracks have finally appeared in this fantasy, but it will take many hammers from progressive groups and thinkers to shatter the illusion. This must happen, because our problems are so many and so large that only cooperative efforts will effectively address them.

The state of our country was not inevitable; we have the resources and knowledge to address what ails us, but they have been suppressed under the yoke of conservatism. My own greatest hope is that the new administration will make the necessary investments to turn our assets into pragmatic solutions that will benefit one and all. We also have a chance to begin educating people on both the realities that face us and the ways we can better our situation, all without the filter of evangelical and conservative ideologies. Further, we can, if we are lucky and industrious, put forward a new public ethic grounded in empathy and integrity. In some cases this will need to be accomplished legislatively, especially in regards to corporate behavior, but ideally it will happen through example.

Many Americans are waking up from the dream woven by corporations, evangelicals, and conservatives; they are becoming savvy to the lies, fairy tales, and twisted logic. This is an opportunity for Naturalists to offer an alternative, one based in reason, empiricism, and pragmatism that is also guided by compassion, imagination, and wonder.
It is an opportunity to remind people of the virtues of cooperation and shared sacrifice in service to the greater good. It is an opportunity to make the switch from throwaway consumerism to sustainability. The pabulum Americans have been given has been attractive and sweet but ultimately without nourishment—it is time for people to find true sustenance, a richer fare that feeds lives of meaning, fulfillment, and joy. That is my wish for this New Year.

In general terms, tolerance can be defined as acceptance (even if grudging) of people who look, act, or believe differently than you do. This is a fine principle that falls under the Third Virtue, Beneficence. If Nature tells us anything, it is that variety is a fundamental property of a healthy system, and so even on a pragmatic level it makes sense to promote tolerance of difference. Homogeneity might be easier, but it would be static and, well, boring. Far better to celebrate diversity, no?

On the whole, I think it is better to err on the side of tolerance when faced with an uncomfortable difference. After all, who are we to say what is the right way to live? Religious Naturalists don't have a holy rule book, and so we are forced to use reason and empathy to determine which things are acceptable and which aren't.

But let's be clear here—not all things are acceptable. Suicide bombing, female castration, slavery, pedophilia, torture—these actions all represent clear moral failings, and as a humanist, I am not only intolerant of such things, I am also willing to fight for their eradication. Progressive humanism does not have an ethic of "perfect tolerance" in this regard.

Of course, the real trick is dealing with the stuff in the grey middle. There are no clear ethical standards when it comes to complicated issues that involve multiple variables; abortion is a good example. Dealing with such things will always require the messy push-and-pull process of articulating values, examining prevailing conditions, predicting outcomes, and trying to persuade people to accept new points of view.

This is what makes the spiritual journey so challenging. On the one hand, it is good to expand one's ability to see from multiple perspectives, to labor for the well-being of others, and to promote a patchwork culture that is fair, rich, and harmonious. On the other hand, it is also good to explore what things in society might need changing, and then to be willing to do something about it.

I understand this is a tough one for those postmodernists who want to protect anything that falls under the rubric of "cultural norm" or "religious belief". But norms and beliefs are not isolated specimens in a zoo—they have real-world consequences. As such, nothing should be off limits for critical examination.

Tolerance does not mean "anything goes as long as it's part of an established culture or population". As a progressive, my aim is to see increased fairness, opportunity, prosperity, and freedom in the world. If cultural norms or religious beliefs significantly inhibit any of these four, I consider it my right, and even my duty as a human, to try to counter them. Of course, persuasion and inspiration are my preferred tools, but vigorous debate, legal action, and peaceful demonstration are all legitimate options when called for.

Social transformation is an ancient religious tradition, and there is no reason for Sacred River, or Religious Naturalism in general, to be any different. The fact is, there are beliefs and norms out there (including some of our own as individuals, no doubt) that run counter to social justice and human flourishing that have too long been safe behind the wall of political correctness. If we want to see a more equitable and thriving world, then we must understand that tolerance does not require complacency or silence.

To be clear, what I'm talking about is not black and white. Human beliefs and behaviors are often messy, contrary, confusing, and horrible. But they can also be beautiful, magnificent, inspiring, and transformative. Often, which is which depends on the perspective one brings to a situation; there are few absolutes in life.

Tolerance is that which inhibits our natural drive to demonize difference by stepping out of one's personal perspective and empathizing with others. In this sense, tolerance is an approach to human interaction which tries to look for fundamental similarities behind the differences. In this way, we can fight those things that prevent a better world, accept benign if conflicting differences, and celebrate our shared heritage as humans, all at the same time.

This is not an easy path. As Naturalists, we do not see a simple world of right and wrong, good and bad. We must choose instead to get in the muck and really engage with the sticky issues of a complex world. We have some wonderful tools to do this with, including reason, empirical inquiry, compassion, and pragmatism. And when we are weary we can lean on history, which shows that the naturalist perspective, on the whole, consistently leads to more veridical, functional, and beneficial solutions. Our mandate does not come from God or any prophet, but from the realization that we alone are responsible for ourselves and if a better world is indeed possible, then it is up to us to get it there, together.

Okay, so far we've come a long way. Let's see what we have—at the core of Sacred River is the central aim of increasing a sense of meaning, fulfillment, and joy in one's life. The three central pillars of Sacred River include religious naturalism, allegoricalism, and progressivism. From this, we can say that sacredness is found within the lived experience of engaging with the natural world as understood via the natural sciences, but with an acknowledgment that religious objects and events can act as powerful doorways to our deepest emotional centers, which can allow for a sense of meaningful profundity. Behavior is guided by an ethic of humanism, which states that humans are worthwhile in their own right and that we are morally mandated to promote liberty, opportunity, and fairness in society, while also developing within ourselves increased health, agency, knowledge, and wisdom. The central key to progress is intentionality, the human tool that drives directed change.

Much of what we've been exploring so far has been theoretical, especially in regards to what underlies the religious impulse and letting go of supernaturalism as a way of interpreting nature. This is important, and no doubt many more theoretical essays will be written. A significant part of spirituality is the development of a particular worldview, and that is what we've largely been working on. However, it's vital to point out that a spiritual life is an active life. Since we do not have any mysterious "essence" that makes us more or less spiritual, being spiritual must include having a spiritual practice.

We've looked at some of the things that such a practice is meant to accomplish. This includes the need to reduce existential anxiety, establish social connections, promote a sense of agency and purpose, express ourselves creatively, and develop a worldview that allows for meaning, values, and aims. There simply can be no one thing that a spiritual practice accomplishes—spiritual development obviously involves a complex web of biopsychosocial elements. This is why it is so useful to have a practice model, to provide a sense of organization and focus. This is something that I hope Sacred River can develop.
( Much more after the cut... )