Adam Frank reflects on the importance of terminology and explains why he chooses to use “the sacred” to express the common aspirations of science and “spiritual endeavor”:

According to the Encyclopedia of Religions, the Latin origins of “sacred” relate to “sacrum”—”what belonged to the gods or what was in their power.” Its early usage related to Roman temples and their rites. In that context, the words sacrum and profanum have been frequently paired together.
The profanum was the space in front of the temple. It was the “outside” where you could sell your Grateful Dead T-shirts, sunglasses, and hot dogs. The sacrum was the inside, and it was a very different kind of place: “A spot referred to as sacer, was either walled off or otherwise set apart.” That definition makes for a compelling resonance.
The Sacred relates back to a specific location, a space and a time, set apart from the ordinary day-to-day happenings of life. The commerce, contest, and competition of the ordinary world occur outside in the profane. Inside, within the sacer, humans entered a realm of a different order. For the Romans, it was a realm of their divinities. For us it can be an experience that calls us out to see the world on its own terms. It is the moment when experience becomes luminous, lit up on its own. That is the space where science begins. We notice the world as it is on its own terms and we are moved to draw closer and ask more. That is also the moment when spiritual endeavor can begin, when an attempt to draw closer to the root of the personal experience is initiated.