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But Haidt also spends a fair amount of the book exploring a comprehensive moral matrix (fascinating) along with the need for the divine—or specifically, a need to belong to something bigger than ourselves, balanced by a hunger for awe. He spends a fair number of pages exploring (and gently denouncing) the New Atheist movement for (willfully) misunderstanding the role of religion in peoples’ lives—he points out that people are motivated to show up for each other not because of shared beliefs but because of belonging. Absent something to belong to, we are adrift.

Culture's positive effects on the brain: Aesthetic experiences enhance the quality of human life through (1) providing a cure for boredom, (2) broadening an individual's ability to perceive the world, and (3) preparing the individual to deal with future contingencies.