Is anything sacred? (Extra credit for specifying what it is for you.)

[Succubus]

The closest I’ve ever come to experiencing what I imagine a religious experience feels like was several years ago (probably closer to 10 years) in Yellowstone National Park.  It was about 10 at night, and we decided to park at one of the lots off the main road, just a few miles west of Old Faithful (there are a lot of other geyser areas and trails and whatnot in the area, with their own little parking lots).

It was just us, and a clear night.  Pitch black, with absolutely no light pollution.  That area of the country, in the northwest corner of Wyoming, has a lot of wide open spaces, so the majesty and grandeur of the universe was laid bare.  I have never felt so small and vulnerable and insignificant.  It was humbling and exhilarating.

It actually reaffirmed my atheism.  I just couldn’t (and can’t) believe that, in a universe so vast it defies comprehension, that we are somehow the stars of the show.  That it was purposely built for us to gawk at.  I mean, in my little slice of the sky, there were more stars than I could count (the benefits of open skies and no light pollution... you can see far more than a handful of constellations at any one time), and that’s not even proportional to a grain of sand in the scheme of things.

So, I guess the universe and our planet are ‘sacred’ to me in a secular way.  It really makes me wish that more people would stop what they’re doing, take a deep breath, and look up at the night sky.  Because a lot of the shit we get hung up on really isn’t important, and 80 or so years of life really isn’t all that much.  Especially when you don’t believe in another existence after this one.

This! A thousand times this.
I had the same experience in Algeria some years ago, plenty miles from the nearest floodlight and no moon. And there in its magnificence was the milky way, and it brought to mind the most humbling realization ever. We are stardust.
Awe, yes. Sacred, fuck no! I have no use for that word.