The poet Mary Oliver speaks as a kind of religious naturalist when she writes in her book of prose and poetry Winter Hours, “I would not be a poet without the natural world. Someone else could. But not me. For me, the door to the woods is the door to the temple. Under the trees, along the pale slopes of sand, I walk in an ascendent relationship to rapture, and with words, I celebrate the rapture. I see, and dote upon, the manifest.”1 She speaks as a poet and not as a philosopher or religious scholar, but she does so as one who is ardently in touch with the sacredness of nature. Her vocation as a poet is testimony to this constant attunement. Her daily walks in the woods and by the sea are her portals of access to the temple of the natural world. Her every step...
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Research Article|
January 01 2022
The Sacredness of Nature: Response to Six Objections to Religious Naturalism
Donald A. Crosby
Donald A. Crosby
Donald A. Crosby is Professor of Philosophy Emeritus of Colorado State University. His current main research interests are in the areas of religious naturalism, metaphysics, American philosophy, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of religion. His most recent (2022) books are Sacred and Secular: Responses to Life in a Finite World (SUNY) and The Multiplicity of Interpreted Worlds: Inner and Outer Perspectives (Lexington Books).
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American Journal of Theology & Philosophy (2022) 43 (1): 24–39.
Citation
Donald A. Crosby; The Sacredness of Nature: Response to Six Objections to Religious Naturalism. American Journal of Theology & Philosophy 1 January 2022; 43 (1): 24–39. doi: https://doi.org/10.5406/21564795.43.1.02
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