In the long run, it is better to understand the way the world really is rather than how we would like it to be.

How can we find spiritual meaning in a scientific worldview? Spirituality is a way of being in the world, a sense of one’s place in the cosmos, a relationship to that which extends beyond oneself. . . . Does scientific explanation of the world diminish its spiritual beauty? I think not. Science and spirituality are complementary, not conflicting; additive, not detractive. Anything that generates a sense of awe may be a source of spirituality. Science does this in spades. (158-159)

What can be more soul shaking than peering through a 100-inch telescope at a distant galaxy, holding a 100-million-year-old fossil or a 500,000-year-old stone tool in one's hand, standing before the immense chasm of space and time that is the Grand Canyon, or listening to a scientist who gazed upon the face of the universe's creation and did not blink?

The human capacity for self-delusion is boundless, and the effects of belief are overpowering.

But because we live in an age of science, we have a preoccupation with corroborating our myths.

Scientific prayer makes God a celestial lab rat, leading to bad science and worse religion.

Myths are stories that express meaning, morality or motivation. Whether they are true or not is irrelevant.