Encountering One’s Naturalism I take religious naturalism to be neither a variant of naturalism nor a religion but rather a description of how naturalism functions in some people’s lives. There appears to be substantial agreement, that religion, of either the book or traditional type, is well-nigh universal. Homo sapiens appears to possess a natural propensity toward religious expression although, ironically, her religion usually postulates supernatural agencies. Naturalism would, therefore, encompass religion whether the adjective religious were attached to it or not. The term “religious naturalism” is redundant in the narrowest sense of that word. At the same time, religious naturalism cannot, in my opinion, claim to be a religion. It shares some features of conventional religions such a core narrative, provisioned in this case by scientific inquiry, and this narrative, along with its interpretations, can be used as a whole or in part to describe the nature, purpose and significance of human experience. It can evoke profound feelings about human experience—awe, gratitude, sacredness - just as religions of either the book or traditional type do. The core narrative and its interpretation can lead ineluctably in some cases and by inference in others to right behavior, how one ought to live, given the truth of the narrative. Virtually all religions, great and small have a moral dimension, so does religious naturalism. But there is much in book and traditional religions that religious naturalism does not share and in some cases fundamentally opposes. I am drawn to Brian Hayden’s simple definition of religion, contained in his encyclopedic Shamans, Sorcerers and Saints: A Prehistory of Religion: “A personal set or institutionalized system of attitudes, beliefs and practices about God or supernatural forces.” It is foundational in naturalism, religious or otherwise, that all phenomena are explainable by natural laws. By its definition, naturalism does not traffic in Gods or supernatural agencies. Virtually all of the world’s great religious traditions, with the possible exception of Buddhism, do. Further, in most religious systems other features of supernaturalism follow accordingly—the capacity to communicate with supernatural beings and the possibility of life after death to mention two prominent ones. These are not present in religious naturalism and, though it is a progressive, open-ended system, it is difficult to imagine how they would enter the narrative of religious naturalism as “true". They are so pervasive in religious systems and so utterly absent in religious naturalism it is difficult to see how the word “religion” can be applied simultaneously to both perspectives and, deserved or not, religious systems enjoy the primacy of a prior and lengthier history. But, if one can parse out the functions of religious naturalism from its content, there is, in my opinion, hope for the term. At the beginning I said that I took the term religious naturalism to be a description of how naturalism has come to function in some people’s lives. For some people, at least some of the time, naturalism “behaves” in a religious sort of way and this behavior is along the general lines described above — it offers a core narrative about the nature of the universe and human existence, it evokes natural feelings of awe, wonder, and even, gratitude that have long been associated with religions. Further, its core narrative points to an ethic, for example, the fragility of life compels an ethic of preservation of life now and life in the future. It is with this proviso that I identify myself as a religious naturalist: religious naturalism is neither a form of naturalism nor a religious system but a way of encountering, to borrow a term from religious existentialists, one’s naturalism and its core narrative. There are other ways to appropriate them - empirical research, logical argument, historical account—but it seems to me that encountering one’s naturalism and its core narrative and reflecting upon it is pretty much the sole province of religious naturalism, whether an individual uses the term to describe himself or not. For me this is the cultural terrain that religious naturalism can and should stake out and exploring this terrain promises to be a fascinating journey indeed. And, to think, it has only just begun.