To me, collective religious ceremony and shared devotional practice is not something peripheral, but is the very center of religion. It is the core that holds everything together. I believe without such shared practices, religious community will fall apart, but there are still enormous challenges to developing religion centered on communal ceremony.
Read MoreWe naturalists spend a lot of time judging and evaluating religion from the outside, from the left hemisphere, but I think ultimately religion is a right hemisphere awareness that the left just doesn’t get. It is primarily through my religious practices that I most strongly feel what Jill Bolte Taylor describes as her right hemisphere awareness, a sense of deep inner peace and connectedness with the Universe, a Universe full of dynamic vitality.
Read MoreGnothi seauton is an important pillar of my sense of spirituality. Gnothi seauton calls me to accept reality, not as I wish it to be, but as it really is. It reminds me that my understanding of reality will always be imperfect and incomplete. Yet gnothi seauton challenges me to strive to know and understand to my fullest ability.
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