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The Sacred Depths of Nature: How Life Has Emerged and Evolved
For many of us, the great scientific discoveries of the modern age--the Big Bang, evolution, quantum physics, relativity--point to an existence that is bleak, devoid of meaning, pointless. But in The Sacred Depths of Nature , eminent biologist Ursula Goodenough shows us that the scientific world view need not be a source of despair. Indeed, it can be a wellspring of solace and hope.
This eloquent volume reconciles the modern scientific understanding of reality with our timeless spiritual yearnings for reverence and continuity. Looking at topics such as evolution, emotions, sexuality, and death, Goodenough writes with rich, uncluttered detail about the workings of nature in general and of living creatures in particular. Her luminous clarity makes it possible for even non-scientists to appreciate that the origins of life and the universe are no less meaningful because of our increasingly scientific understanding of them. At the end of each chapter, Goodenough's spiritual reflections respond to the complexity of nature with vibrant emotional intensity and a sense of reverent wonder. This new edition offers a deepened consideration of emergent properties and emergent dynamics, as well as an exploration of their role as the generators of life's complexity. Goodenough also expands upon the ethic of ecomorality in a new chapter, and incorporates new quotes, figures, and
poems in her analysis.
A beautifully written celebration of molecular biology with meditations on the spiritual and religious meaning that can be found at the heart of science, this volume makes an important contribution to the ongoing dialog between science and religion. This book will engage anyone who was ever mesmerized--or terrified--by the mysteries of existence.
This eloquent volume reconciles the modern scientific understanding of reality with our timeless spiritual yearnings for reverence and continuity. Looking at topics such as evolution, emotions, sexuality, and death, Goodenough writes with rich, uncluttered detail about the workings of nature in general and of living creatures in particular. Her luminous clarity makes it possible for even non-scientists to appreciate that the origins of life and the universe are no less meaningful because of our increasingly scientific understanding of them. At the end of each chapter, Goodenough's spiritual reflections respond to the complexity of nature with vibrant emotional intensity and a sense of reverent wonder. This new edition offers a deepened consideration of emergent properties and emergent dynamics, as well as an exploration of their role as the generators of life's complexity. Goodenough also expands upon the ethic of ecomorality in a new chapter, and incorporates new quotes, figures, and
poems in her analysis.
A beautifully written celebration of molecular biology with meditations on the spiritual and religious meaning that can be found at the heart of science, this volume makes an important contribution to the ongoing dialog between science and religion. This book will engage anyone who was ever mesmerized--or terrified--by the mysteries of existence.
284 pages, Hardcover
Published February 24, 2023
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80 people want to read
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February 25, 2023
Book Review
‘The Sacred Depths of Nature’ Second Edition
by Harold Wood
We first wrote a book review of Ursula Goodenough’s book, The Sacred Depths of Nature, in Pantheist Vision in 1999, shortly after the first edition of the book was published. Since then, we've quoted Dr. Goodenough in brief excerpts several times, such as her fine critique of traditional Humanism in a 2010 issue of Pantheist Vision. We’ve listed her book on our website since its first publication on our “Recommended Reading for Pantheists” page. Now, 25 years later, Dr. Goodenough has written a second edition of her book (2023). Her new edition is just as essential reading.
Ursula Goodenough is eminently qualified to write on this topic, bridging science and spirituality. She is a retired Professor of Biology at Washington University and a founder and president of the non-profit Religious Naturalist Association, with whom we work in coalition.
I know people who hold a very negative view of the “reductionist” principles of modern science. They often tell me that their high school or college required biology classes left them cold, giving them the impression that scientific methods removed all the sense of joy, wonder, beauty, awe, and reverence that they could feel outdoors in Nature - but not in the laboratory with its glass beakers and antiseptic surfaces. This book is an antidote to that way of thinking. Dr. Goodenough acknowledges that “many of us, and scientists are no exception, are vulnerable to the existential shudder that leaves us wishing that the foundations of life were something other than just so much biochemistry and biophysics.” In response, she offers the “Mozart metaphor,” explaining how a Mozart sonata is beautiful beyond belief, but its blueprint, emerging from Mozart’s mind, is just so many black specks on paper to be translated into strings hit by tiny hammers. Learning the inner workings of the music, with its chords and phrases and tempos and melodies and patterns, does not diminish the beauty, but helps us to appreciate it even more, to celebrate and even vibrate with it. And so, while Goodenough writes about cell biology, biochemistry, DNA, plant and animal biology, sex and intimacy, and evolution, she does so with a celebratory flair, activating our joy and reverence. Yes, sometimes the science can be described as “reductionist,” but Dr. Goodenough immediately follows such passages with enlightening “synthesis” and re-integration into spiritual meaning.
Extensively revised with full-color photos and diagrams, each chapter begins with a story about the dynamics of Nature, including the origins and evolution of the universe and life on Earth. The book's construction is like a science-based “daily devotional” and can best be read as such. It is rich and detailed enough that you may want to read it over time. Like the first edition, each topic is carefully yet poetically examined objectively through the lens of science, followed by the author’s personal reflections on each. Dr. Goodenough unveils the spiritual sensibilities elicited by what Nature reveals, generating the foundations for a religious naturalist orientation. She avers: “As a cell biologist immersed in these understandings, I experience the same kind of awe and reverence when I contemplate the structure of an enzyme or the flowing of a cascade as when I watch the moon rise or visit Machu Picchu. Same rush, same rapture.” Passages of poetry from the likes of e.e. cummings, Wendell Berry, and Mary Oliver help to further open our eyes to the beauty of Nature – as revealed from the largest natural phenomena to the astonishing complexity of cells and organisms and to the wonder of “deep time,” and biological diversity and evolution.
Dr. Goodenough, who recently became a member of the Universal Pantheist Society, says she calls herself a religious naturalist and not a Pantheist, but she regards the two orientations as deeply congruent. Though Dr. Goodenough is strictly non-theistic, a religious scholar would argue that whatever you ascribe as ultimate meaning and concern is your “god,” and what you “worship” is whatever you place the highest value on. Dr. Goodenough unflinchingly asserts: “And so, I profess my Faith. For me, the existence of all this biological complexity and awareness and intent and beauty and relationship, embedded in its wondrous planetary matrix, serves as the ultimate meaning and the ultimate value.” Her expression aligns precisely with our own Pantheist vision of “a renewed reverence for the Earth and a vision of Nature as the ultimate context for human existence.” Given that her version of divinity is discovered in the sacred depths of nature, her form of religious naturalism seems wholly in accord with modern Pantheism, notwithstanding a different nomenclature. Like Pantheism, religious naturalism “takes Nature to heart.” As Dr. Goodenough explains, reverence is the capacity to perceive the sacred, not in the supernatural, but “to revere the whole enterprise of planetary existence, the whole and all of its myriad parts as they catalyze and secrete and replicate and mutate and evolve.”
This second edition has two new chapters and a new epilogue. The penultimate chapter, on human evolution, explores how we are connected to all creatures, not just in food chains or ecological equilibria, but in a familial way. Our closest cousins are the Chimpanzee and Bonobo. But many of our genes are much more ancient, like those of diatoms or mushrooms or daffodils; we all share a common ancestry. Because we share genes with gorillas and mushrooms, and with bacteria, trees, flowers, and worms, we now recognize a fellowship of life; our kinship with all beings. Yet, we can also “celebrate the human distinctiveness that generates our creative gifts.”
In the final new chapter on morality/ecomorality, Dr. Goodenough explains that “Human morality derives from our communal sensibilities as a social lineage. Religious traditions mold these sensibilities into aspirational mindful virtues – compassion, fair-mindedness, reverence, and courage – that are pitted against our tendencies to be self-serving, proactively aggressive, and xenophobic. These can be broadened in scope to become eco-virtues – respecting, cherishing, nurturing, and celebrating that from which we have come and upon which we depend.”
Her original epilogue on “emergent religious principles” has been expanded a bit, in which she describes religious naturalist principles of ultimacy, gratitude, reverence, compassion, nurture, and a commitment to foster the continuation and flourishing of life. She affirms that “Humans need Myths [stories] that help to orient us in our lives and in the cosmos.” She shows how our responses to the story of life – the Epic of Evolution (or her newly preferred name, “Everybody’s Story”) can irrefutably “yield deep and abiding spiritual experiences” and a new eco-morality. A new final chapter on the Religious Naturalist Orientation explores these ideas further.
Unlike most books, the final endnotes are not to be ignored. They provide valuable anecdotes and a veritable compendium of classic and recent literature on biodiversity, evolution, religious naturalism, and Pantheism, inviting further reading. And the entire book itself, like any “daily devotional,” invites reading and re-reading.
Learn more about the book here: http://sacreddepthsofnature.com
and about the author and the Religious Naturalist Association here: https://religious-naturalist-associat...
Excerpted from:
The Sacred Depths of Nature, 2nd Edition by Ursula Goodenough – Book Review by Harold Wood, excerpted from Pantheist Vision. Vol. 40, No. 1, Spring. 2023.
https://www.pantheist.net
‘The Sacred Depths of Nature’ Second Edition
by Harold Wood
We first wrote a book review of Ursula Goodenough’s book, The Sacred Depths of Nature, in Pantheist Vision in 1999, shortly after the first edition of the book was published. Since then, we've quoted Dr. Goodenough in brief excerpts several times, such as her fine critique of traditional Humanism in a 2010 issue of Pantheist Vision. We’ve listed her book on our website since its first publication on our “Recommended Reading for Pantheists” page. Now, 25 years later, Dr. Goodenough has written a second edition of her book (2023). Her new edition is just as essential reading.
Ursula Goodenough is eminently qualified to write on this topic, bridging science and spirituality. She is a retired Professor of Biology at Washington University and a founder and president of the non-profit Religious Naturalist Association, with whom we work in coalition.
I know people who hold a very negative view of the “reductionist” principles of modern science. They often tell me that their high school or college required biology classes left them cold, giving them the impression that scientific methods removed all the sense of joy, wonder, beauty, awe, and reverence that they could feel outdoors in Nature - but not in the laboratory with its glass beakers and antiseptic surfaces. This book is an antidote to that way of thinking. Dr. Goodenough acknowledges that “many of us, and scientists are no exception, are vulnerable to the existential shudder that leaves us wishing that the foundations of life were something other than just so much biochemistry and biophysics.” In response, she offers the “Mozart metaphor,” explaining how a Mozart sonata is beautiful beyond belief, but its blueprint, emerging from Mozart’s mind, is just so many black specks on paper to be translated into strings hit by tiny hammers. Learning the inner workings of the music, with its chords and phrases and tempos and melodies and patterns, does not diminish the beauty, but helps us to appreciate it even more, to celebrate and even vibrate with it. And so, while Goodenough writes about cell biology, biochemistry, DNA, plant and animal biology, sex and intimacy, and evolution, she does so with a celebratory flair, activating our joy and reverence. Yes, sometimes the science can be described as “reductionist,” but Dr. Goodenough immediately follows such passages with enlightening “synthesis” and re-integration into spiritual meaning.
Extensively revised with full-color photos and diagrams, each chapter begins with a story about the dynamics of Nature, including the origins and evolution of the universe and life on Earth. The book's construction is like a science-based “daily devotional” and can best be read as such. It is rich and detailed enough that you may want to read it over time. Like the first edition, each topic is carefully yet poetically examined objectively through the lens of science, followed by the author’s personal reflections on each. Dr. Goodenough unveils the spiritual sensibilities elicited by what Nature reveals, generating the foundations for a religious naturalist orientation. She avers: “As a cell biologist immersed in these understandings, I experience the same kind of awe and reverence when I contemplate the structure of an enzyme or the flowing of a cascade as when I watch the moon rise or visit Machu Picchu. Same rush, same rapture.” Passages of poetry from the likes of e.e. cummings, Wendell Berry, and Mary Oliver help to further open our eyes to the beauty of Nature – as revealed from the largest natural phenomena to the astonishing complexity of cells and organisms and to the wonder of “deep time,” and biological diversity and evolution.
Dr. Goodenough, who recently became a member of the Universal Pantheist Society, says she calls herself a religious naturalist and not a Pantheist, but she regards the two orientations as deeply congruent. Though Dr. Goodenough is strictly non-theistic, a religious scholar would argue that whatever you ascribe as ultimate meaning and concern is your “god,” and what you “worship” is whatever you place the highest value on. Dr. Goodenough unflinchingly asserts: “And so, I profess my Faith. For me, the existence of all this biological complexity and awareness and intent and beauty and relationship, embedded in its wondrous planetary matrix, serves as the ultimate meaning and the ultimate value.” Her expression aligns precisely with our own Pantheist vision of “a renewed reverence for the Earth and a vision of Nature as the ultimate context for human existence.” Given that her version of divinity is discovered in the sacred depths of nature, her form of religious naturalism seems wholly in accord with modern Pantheism, notwithstanding a different nomenclature. Like Pantheism, religious naturalism “takes Nature to heart.” As Dr. Goodenough explains, reverence is the capacity to perceive the sacred, not in the supernatural, but “to revere the whole enterprise of planetary existence, the whole and all of its myriad parts as they catalyze and secrete and replicate and mutate and evolve.”
This second edition has two new chapters and a new epilogue. The penultimate chapter, on human evolution, explores how we are connected to all creatures, not just in food chains or ecological equilibria, but in a familial way. Our closest cousins are the Chimpanzee and Bonobo. But many of our genes are much more ancient, like those of diatoms or mushrooms or daffodils; we all share a common ancestry. Because we share genes with gorillas and mushrooms, and with bacteria, trees, flowers, and worms, we now recognize a fellowship of life; our kinship with all beings. Yet, we can also “celebrate the human distinctiveness that generates our creative gifts.”
In the final new chapter on morality/ecomorality, Dr. Goodenough explains that “Human morality derives from our communal sensibilities as a social lineage. Religious traditions mold these sensibilities into aspirational mindful virtues – compassion, fair-mindedness, reverence, and courage – that are pitted against our tendencies to be self-serving, proactively aggressive, and xenophobic. These can be broadened in scope to become eco-virtues – respecting, cherishing, nurturing, and celebrating that from which we have come and upon which we depend.”
Her original epilogue on “emergent religious principles” has been expanded a bit, in which she describes religious naturalist principles of ultimacy, gratitude, reverence, compassion, nurture, and a commitment to foster the continuation and flourishing of life. She affirms that “Humans need Myths [stories] that help to orient us in our lives and in the cosmos.” She shows how our responses to the story of life – the Epic of Evolution (or her newly preferred name, “Everybody’s Story”) can irrefutably “yield deep and abiding spiritual experiences” and a new eco-morality. A new final chapter on the Religious Naturalist Orientation explores these ideas further.
Unlike most books, the final endnotes are not to be ignored. They provide valuable anecdotes and a veritable compendium of classic and recent literature on biodiversity, evolution, religious naturalism, and Pantheism, inviting further reading. And the entire book itself, like any “daily devotional,” invites reading and re-reading.
Learn more about the book here: http://sacreddepthsofnature.com
and about the author and the Religious Naturalist Association here: https://religious-naturalist-associat...
Excerpted from:
The Sacred Depths of Nature, 2nd Edition by Ursula Goodenough – Book Review by Harold Wood, excerpted from Pantheist Vision. Vol. 40, No. 1, Spring. 2023.
https://www.pantheist.net
August 30, 2023
Contemporary pollsters and mass media pay loads of attention to the SBNRs (Spiritual But Not Religious) and the Nones (those who answer “None” when asked to specify their religion). Reading this book, I got the sense that *this* is what the SBNRs and Nones are actually seeking: the Religious Naturalist worldview, rooted in deep reverence for nature. The author is a superb guide to the exploration of these issues, not only due to her stellar academic credentials but due to her empathy for the yearnings of such seekers. She is a scientist but does not disrespect religious beliefs or subscribe to a fundamentalist sort of scientism.
I had previously read the 1st edition and was deeply satisfied with the new preface, epilogue, and substantial updates to this 2nd edition.
I had previously read the 1st edition and was deeply satisfied with the new preface, epilogue, and substantial updates to this 2nd edition.
April 26, 2023
Telling the story of how life emerged and evolved requires an incredibly deep science-based understanding of the complex processes involved. Ursula Goodenough is such a person. A career as a cell biologist has equipped her with a rare comprehension of how life functions at the molecular level. Combine this with the heart of a poet and the mind of a philosopher and you get an individual uniquely qualified to, not only tell the scientific story of life and evolution but with the character and depth of feeling to contemplate and explain what it all means in human terms. This book provides the foundation for a clear understanding of our place in nature and the implications this has for our species and the future of our planet.
August 20, 2024
This book is a must read for people with little to no science knowledge or background (like me). The way that the biological basics of life are laid out and communicated were captivating and easy to read. In other words, this book got me interested in biology.
While explaining the basics of life on earth, the book also weaves a sense of spirituality (religious naturalism) into the scientific truths. This aspect of the book I needed no help with, as I too find the facts of life so mystical and mind blowing that a religious reverence for reality is automatically stirred in my consciousness. But for anyone struggling to reconcile a sense of higher purpose with the hard facts of science, this book is for you.
While explaining the basics of life on earth, the book also weaves a sense of spirituality (religious naturalism) into the scientific truths. This aspect of the book I needed no help with, as I too find the facts of life so mystical and mind blowing that a religious reverence for reality is automatically stirred in my consciousness. But for anyone struggling to reconcile a sense of higher purpose with the hard facts of science, this book is for you.
February 25, 2024
Thank you for this wonderful book, and thanks to Barbara Archibald for letting me know about it. Glad I was able to read it before the author talk tomorrow. I want to read it again right away because there are so many parts that spoke to me.
Want to read
October 13, 2024RK KINDLE.
March 17, 2023
This book shows many wonders, as it looks at beauty and order in the natural world and processes that enable this to be, and how emotional connection to nature can enrich our lives.
Each chapter starts by showing “how things are”, with scientific perspectives on origins, varied aspects of life on Earth, and what can mean to be alive and aware. These are each followed by “Reflections” on how things we can experience in and learn about the natural world can help us to see with fresh eyes, better notice and care, and respect things that, deep-down, matter. One outcome of this is increased attention to ecomorality and preserving natural environments. And as, for some, it can rise to a level of reverence, the Epilogue discusses perspectives on being spiritual or religious that include taking nature to heart.
While discussions of science and life questions can sometimes make for heavy reading, this is not an issue here. Instead, we can enjoy the ride; where, as Ursula Goodenough combines the knowledge of a renowned biologist, the feeling of seeing nature as sacred, and an easy and personal style of writing, we have a wise and thought-provoking tour guide.
Each chapter starts by showing “how things are”, with scientific perspectives on origins, varied aspects of life on Earth, and what can mean to be alive and aware. These are each followed by “Reflections” on how things we can experience in and learn about the natural world can help us to see with fresh eyes, better notice and care, and respect things that, deep-down, matter. One outcome of this is increased attention to ecomorality and preserving natural environments. And as, for some, it can rise to a level of reverence, the Epilogue discusses perspectives on being spiritual or religious that include taking nature to heart.
While discussions of science and life questions can sometimes make for heavy reading, this is not an issue here. Instead, we can enjoy the ride; where, as Ursula Goodenough combines the knowledge of a renowned biologist, the feeling of seeing nature as sacred, and an easy and personal style of writing, we have a wise and thought-provoking tour guide.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews