“I am an atheist, and am addressing an audience in which, if I’m not mistaken, respect for the tenets of established religion is fairly low. But I want to explore reverence — in the spirit of Chesterton’s Fence — because it is common to many virtue systems across cultures and across time. Among the questions that concern me:
“Are there aspects of reverence that are valuable that rationalists can preserve and nurture in their own ways in their own traditions?
“Is reverence perhaps so valuable that it is worth taking a ‘leap of faith’ beyond the limits of rationalism in order to practice it?”
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/HnNNGWQEX7CgaqBt2/notes-on-reverence
Excerpt:
“I am an atheist, and am addressing an audience in which, if I’m not mistaken, respect for the tenets of established religion is fairly low. But I want to explore reverence — in the spirit of Chesterton’s Fence — because it is common to many virtue systems across cultures and across time. Among the questions that concern me:
“Are there aspects of reverence that are valuable that rationalists can preserve and nurture in their own ways in their own traditions?
“Is reverence perhaps so valuable that it is worth taking a ‘leap of faith’ beyond the limits of rationalism in order to practice it?”