Asatru for Beginners / The Varieties of Scientific Experience | Fresh-Read Kills | July 9, 2024 

The Varieties of Scientific Experience sounds like a great read. Love that your friend wanted to re-experience his fire-dance. Ah, the joys of Summer and Autumn - the ground is dry and the temperatures are great for outdoor activities. From the microscopic world to the wonders of our universe, the natural world amazes me. The more I learn, the more I am in awe of life, and the universe. :)

I saw Carl Sagan in the thumbnail and knew it was going to be a good one! He's also one of my heroes, and the first book I read was The Demon-Haunted World. That book completely changed my life -- his words expressed exactly what I felt at the time. I was a man without a country -- I had lost my religion (Catholicism) in my mid-20s -- and I didn't know how to deal with that loss. Science revealed the path. Search for truth and applying skepticism and critical thinking has enriched my life. I am forever indebted to him for helping me find my way. I have read nearly all of his books, and will continue to reread them for the rest of my life. Good luck in your search for meaning, friend!

What a great video! That Summer Solstice thing you did sounds like a neat experience. Sagan was one of the great ones 🥲

They both sound very interesting. I'm a fire pit dude too, but only in winter. Channelling my inner pagan and didnt know it 🤭 I find science motivating when I put it to practical use (I'm a DIY'er, fixer of lots of things eg. made my own firepit ).

You'll find that although traditional religion declines as secularism rises, many desire a sense of belonging and community if not some sort of spirituality that used to be fulfilled through "traditional" relgion. So, I'm not surprised about tbe rise of neopaganism and animism. Regardless, of the relgion, I think everyone should be a witness to nature and a proper steward of it. Always seems odd when people aren't in awe of natural beauty anyway. You think more along rationalist lines and the enligtenment thought that made it popular. It's interesting, and you may or may not be interested, but Sagans book there is certainly alluding to another book called The Variety of Religious Experience by William James that looks at similarities or commonalities among various faith traditions. Thanks for the video!

At the rate you are going, you could probably sell tickets to your Autumn Equinox spectacle:)