MOL-BIO Podcast- The Sacred Depths of Nature #science #atheism #religion #biology #microbiology

Skip to 00:16:05 to find out about Prof Goodenough's "Sacred Depths of Nature" concept and what the Religious Naturalist Association is about. Links related to Ursula Goodenough’s work and interests: The official website for the Religious Naturalist Association (RNA)- https://religious-naturalist-associat... The official website for The Sacred Depths of Nature is found here- https://sacreddepthsofnature.com/ The Ecospiritual Hub, as taken and reworded from the website: Ecospirituality connects science-based perspectives on the natural world with spiritual responses, including gratitude, reverence, humility, compassion, and joy. It unites a number of religious beliefs, faiths, and ways of being on the common grounds of the ultimate importance of the natural world- https://www.ecospiritualhub.org/ Author Ursula Goodenough is Professor Emeritus at Washington University after partially retiring in 2017 from a full-time, long-held professorship in Biology also at Washington. Her research focused on the function and evolution of sex in the single-celled eukaryotic organism Chlamydomonas. Goodenough’s book explores how we understand our place within the Universe from the perspective of science and biology. This ambitious book examines life from the molecular level at the origin of life, right the way up to the evolution of human communication, language, and religion. But the book serves a second function: to reflect on how all of this modern scientific knowledge impacts our sense of meaning and purpose. Goodenough is a non-theist and develops the idea of religious experience without God, called religious naturalism, but it’s not a religion as such; instead, it involves a reverence for nature and a commitment to positive ethical behaviour. The Sacred Depths of Nature was first published in 2000, but this fully up-to-date version is from 2023 and includes additional forewords and epilogues written by the author that respond to the reaction to the first edition. I reviewed Prof. Goodenough's Book in full on Substack: https://substack.com/home/post/p-2078... This podcast is not an advertisement. I purchased this book with my own money from a British retailer. This book is widely available all over the world. It’s published by Oxford University Press. Chapters/Timestamps Title Slide 00:01:39 Prof Goodenough's Research Career 00:03:31 The Sacred Depths of Nature 00:16:05 What is a Religious Naturalist? 00:33:37 The Natural History of Religion, Morality, and Ecomorality 00:55:48 The Planetary Matrix 01:09:05 Show Notes and Summary 01:41:28 Shownotes Speaking with Ursula has pushed me towards the term Non-theist rather than Atheist. Of course, this is a personal choice, but one that I think might better capture the spirit of what I am trying to do with this platform. Ursula is a scientist; she does not personally hold supernatural beliefs in a God or anything else like that She is a proponent of what is called the Religious Naturalist Orientation and is President of the Religious Naturalist Association (RNA) (https://religious-naturalist-associat...) All of this is explained in-depth in her recently updated book “The Sacred Depths of Nature”. I also understand that the term religious will be hugely off-putting still for some viewers, and of course, let me know in the comments how you feel about it? For me, I am convinced by the cautious use of the word by Ursula, and after filming this podcast episode I decided to sign up to the Religious Naturalist Association