I feel that all religious stories are meant to be understood in principle not literally or in a dogmatic way. I also think there is great wisdom in many of these stories that can be taken and applied to daily life. Moral dilemmas are difficult, but if we take time to listen to our inner voice and compass, our timeless awareness, usually the truth will emerge. Once we clear away the barriers insight will emerge and our way forward will become clear and luminous. As a self-recognized Buddhist, my interpretation of the word “dharma” is that it is the principles and timeless truths that uphold our universe and reality. Truths that are truly immortal and answer to no one. Upon these truths our lives flow. To tap into these leads to the freedom of our souls.

Sentience basically, just what it means to be human and all the faculties we have access to that other animals don’t (potential for introspection and high level thought and investigation, curiosity, etc) there’s a sort of wonder and joy to being alive that goes beyond hard science.

It goes beyond just language acquisition. How do you sum up the consciousness and awareness of humans through science? It’s a largely subjective experience. You can start from science and we’re still learning more about the brain from biology and neuroscience but I don’t agree that we can fully explain human psychology through hard science as of yet.

It’s a phenomenon arising out of biology, it cannot be fully explained by biology, at least not yet