Naturalism (Religious or Otherwise): A Tentative Sketch

Naturalism provides a context for humanism in that it provides a reminder (which we sometimes need) to seek meanings and values in the extra-human world and that we need to cherish and protect this world. Naturalism thus provides a balance to the anthropocentricism into which humanism can sometimes fall. In speaking of an "extra-human" world, I don't mean to focus on wilderness protection to the exclusion of urban gardens. Indeed, given the permeability of our skins, the environment is within us as well as outside of us.