The Church of Wonder

I think I'm going to found a religion today. I'm not really sure what to call it, but the principles of it are pretty clear to me after many years of ponderous consideration on the subject:

1) Science can and will ultimately describe and explain all aspects of reality, creation, and the nature of existence.

2) However there is much about the experience of being human, the stuff that goes on between our ears, which science can't even begin to ask the questions about, let alone give the answers for.

3) There is more to being human than biochemistry, and to seek an evolutionary rationalization for every human behavior is reductive and avoidant. Consciousness is more than the sum of our neurological functions and hormones. Choice is real. You know what I'm talking about, and that's exactly the point I mean to make.

4) The human creature has a built-in spiritualogical faculty which asserts itself alongside our built in capacity for reason, and our emotional and sexual impulses, even our primal need for food and warmth and safety. This spiritualogical faculty is either a fatal flaw or a transcendent strength depending solely on its application.

5) This spiritualogical capacity is not to be confused with superstition or laziness or slouching toward easy explanations. Indeed, even the most rational, rigorous, and informed individuals may experience a transcendent wonderment at the complexity of an ecosystem or the mere fact of simple visible light. The pleasure and temptation and terror of this wonderment is the expression and end of our spritualogical capacity.

6) Atheism is not necessarily incompatible with the exercise of this spiritualogical faculty. The belief in magical gods may be irrational and laughable but our spiritualogical faculty is a necessary tool in our own artistic endeavors, ambitions after greatness, our humility in our technological might, our joy in the face of eventual doom. Atheism is too often confused with rejection of traditional religious convictions.

7) The reasonable pursuit of an atheistic life is not necessarily the expungement of all religious practice from the world, but rather leadership in its refinement and evolution away from destructive practices designed for more primal stages in our development, and toward an aspirational future.

8) Denominations and churches are records of the spiritualogical seekings of others. Nothing more. It is of primary importance to exercise our own faculties, make our own seekings. It is no better or worse for posterity if we record them.

9) Death is the end of our agency as conscious beings. There is such a thing as life beyond the grave, but it is less of a literal afterlife and more of an interplay of how we teach our children, how we impact our peers, and what damage is left behind by our existence.

10) Nine is enough. Eleven would be fine. There's no numerology about any of this.