A fun review of evolution, an excellent overview of the beauty of life.

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	• The Sacred Depths of Nature Ursula Goodenough Oxford University Press, USA, 2000 - 224 pages average customer review:based on 22 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A fun review of evolution, an excellent overview of the beauty of life.

It is refreshing to find a brilliant scientist who is willing to turn nature into poetry and spirituality. It shouldn't matter if you are an atheist or a deist, the description of the common bonds we have with the earth and the different species of the animal kingdom brings tears to your eyes. At the same time, we can have reverence and feeling for the profound desires of humans to communicate and feel intimacy with God who may well be a metaphor for the beauty of the gorgeous biological process.

Religious Response to "what is."

The phrase that titles this review is one frequently used by Dr. Goodenough. Beneath its elegance and poetry this beautifully constructed vision of natural law and our global siblings' spiritual response to "what is," is a strong sense of purpose driven by the imperatives of modern human life. In the face of environmental peril and the experience of millenia of fratricidal bloodletting, we must rethink the foundations of our religious and political institutions that separate us and turn instead to our common natural essence for a new form of religion will unite us.

I recommend this work for anyone able to read.

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Essential Reading

Ursula Goodenough has produced a very rare bridge between non-theistic evolutionary science and religion where she expresses an understanding of the spiritual side of human culture while keeping her feet planted firmly on the science ground. Through what she calls 'religious naturalism' Goodenough seeks to show how natural reality abounds with natural 'miracles' that elicit 'religious' emotions without the need to belong to any particular religion nor believe in a god. More than this, she seeks to show how nature itself can provide every one of us with all that is necessary to be 'religious' in the sense of having a common planetary ethic, planetary wisdom and interconnectedness.

Religious people believe that existance without a god would be devoid of meaning, bleak and pointless. Goodenough explains how this absolutely does not need not be so and how, in fact, understanding how life works can fill existance with immense joy. She gives a clear, brief explanation of aspects of life from the origins of the earth to human consciousness and adds her own personal refections on the 'religious', though non-theist, way life makes her feel.

Mortality is one aspect of life that often spurs people to believe in a god and Goodenough explains the origins of mortality in the evolution of multicellularity and sexual reproduction with the resulting diversity of life. With multicellularity the germline cells are sequestered from the body cells which, not themselves going into the future, can specialize and create complex body parts including the brain. These body cells, and bodies, have a limited life ie "death is the price paid to have trees and clams, birds and grasshoppers, people and consciousness." Goodenough can therefore say: "my somatic life is the wondrous gift wrought by my forthcoming death".

I don't know how many people who are firmly in the non-theist or theist camp would find a bridge between the two as comfortable as Ursula Goodenough finds it but that is what makes this book essential reading for everyone.

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This is Really Good

I loved this book and it's a refreshing thing for a thinking person to read.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

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.
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.

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