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> Sacredness is a religious idea
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I couldn't disagree more. But i doubt there's much to be gained from arguing about it here. I view sacredness (from a humanist perspective let me stress) as being a profoundly important development along our evolutionary road. It seems to me that describing sacredness as "a religious idea" is - frankly - getting the cart squarely before the horse.

Einstein's "holy curiosity" is an allusion to a trait within humankind that existed (almost by definition) long before religion. And when i use the word "sacred", i always think of it in the context of the wonderful maxim from Albert Schweitzer:

"A man is ethical only when life, as such, is sacred to him, that of plants and animals as that of his fellow men, and when he devotes himself helpfully to all life that is in need of help."