Irreligious people: what does "sacrality" mean to you? How does that answer affect your behavior?
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I asked in part because I have trouble characterizing my sense of sacredness. Here's my attempt:
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Replying to @kanjun and @_Jose_Miguel_S
I'll try.
For me, "sacrality" describes a way of relating, emphasizing reverence, awe, majesty, transcendence.
Some things reliably exist in this relationship with me: Pale Blue Dot, forests, dancing cellular mechanisms, Falcon stages landing. Most flicker in and out.
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I was surprised how resistant many replies were to notions of the sacred. A number of people assumed—sometimes a bit self-righteously!—that I myself am religious. I'm not! But sacrality is still very real for me, and it's only become more so over the past decade.
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This from Jonathan Sacks nicely captures a piece of it for me: "In essence, spirituality is what happens when we open ourselves to something greater than ourselves." rabbisacks.org/introduction-t (via Luke Burgis's "Wanting")
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The most intense version of this I get is feelings of human connection across great lengths of time and culture. So reading Plato and finding him worry about silly stuff I worry about, or big concerns. Or laughing at a joke in an early Buddhist text, or in Shakespeare.
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Absolutely!!
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I liked a definition I got from The Righteous Mind that things are sacred that we ascribe infinite value to. I think it’s a parallel definition to how you’re talking about the feelings of awe sacred things awake. I’ve found it useful.
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Since it’s related, I try and notice this definition in the context of decision making. And when trying to decide between different things, infinity signs as weights are always a trap.
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I think your attempt to define a sense of sacredness is spot on.
I might add something like numinous shock experienced in the face of the truly alien.
How it changes my behavior is a good question, but beyond the scope of what I have time to explore currently.