RELIGION & CIVILITY: The Primacy of Conscience (the third book of the breakthrough "Second Enlightenment Trilogy") reveals trial-and-error failures and successes of past and present civilizations. Man inherits from nature hard-won intelligence (cortical consciousness) to learn from errors of irreligion and incivility. Though more painful, error is sometimes the most convincing teacher. The author, Sylvester L. Steffen, deciphers from nature her rosetta code - the trimorphic processes of resonance - by which cosmic energy/matter evolves in conscious complexity. Brute inclinations, sex, violence and instinct are background to enlightenment. Steffen gives come-uppance to the frustrations of patriarchal self-worship. The ugly sides and the good sides of popes, kings and commoners stand to face bloodied truth. The dead-end absolutes of religion and politics, cultured in static world consciousness, are looked at - upfront and close - and are relegated to history in favor of open-ended possibilities of evolutionary consciousness. Religion & Civility is a book of epochal potential. It is powerfully indicting, powerfully illuminating. From cover to cover it is surprising, even life-changing. The other books of the "Second Enlightenment Trilogy" are Primary Scripture: Cosmic Religion's First Lessons, and Quantum Religion: The Good News of Rising Consciousness, also published by 1stBooks Library.