This essay may not be something that the 'religiously devout' person wants to hear. It is an 'rational-empirical' philosopher's perspective on the 'epistemology' vs. the 'mythology' of 'God' and 'religion'. My thesis is basically that the 'epistemology' of 'God' -- meaning the 'realness of His or Her existence' is highly suspect and questionable based on 21st century rational-empirical knowledge or epistemology. There are too many 'leaps of faith' and 'suspensions of disbelief' of normal, every-day, common-sense knowledge necessary to turn the possibility of 'God's existence' into a probability, let alone a 'fact'. Does God have a 'physical presence' and 'physical boundaries'? What does 'He or She or It look like? Are we really to believe that 'God has an ever-lasting life-span, unlike anything else on earth that we have ever seen or heard of? Are we really to believe that 'God is all-powerful'? And that 'God is inherently good when there is so much destructive and selfish evil in this world?'
From an 'epistemological' point of view, the existence of 'God' is highly improbable. 'God' is more rationally seen as a 'mythological construct' -- a projection of many of man's wishful and/or fearful needs -- that has been used for thousands of years by man to 'ward off a fear of death' and to 'help him ethically behave better on earth' (and some might cynically say allow people in power to better control the behavior of the masses and to get them to do things that they would not normally do because these behaviors would violate the 'pleasure and happiness' principle.) The ethical and moral virtue of God and religion can be better supported 'mythologically' than 'epistemologically' but even this comes with a serious 'caveat emptor'. Mythologically-speaking, religion is neither 'good' or 'bad' but the type of man-made ethics, attitude, and behavior that support the religion all make it so -- or not so. You have to 'dig into the contents' of the religion in order to determine whether it is 'good' or 'bad' for man. And you have to 'dig into the particulars' of how each and every person is using his or her religion for the good or bad of him or herself -- and others around him or her -- to determine its relative 'personal health content' or 'personal pathology content'.
Returning to an epistemological point of view, the closest I can come to connecting 'rationality' or 'reason' with 'God' is through 'Intelligent Design Theory'. In other words, it is easy to argue that the world -- and everything in it -- is so amazingly well-designed, so 'intelligently' well-designed, that it is very hard not to, indeed, almost impossible not to, believe that there must have been some intelligent designER behind the incredible complexity of this design. It is very hard to believe the opposite point of view -- that the world, and everything in it, with all of its individual and collective complexities of functional design, was created simply by 'accident'. Even evolution theory -- is a little stale and 'parameter restricted' if by evolution theory we want to restrict ourselves only to the Darwinian perspective of 'genetic evolution over numerous generations'. This cannot account for much faster forms of evolution such as human evolution through individual and/or social learning. Hegelian social evolution or dialectic (thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis) theory is a much stronger way of accounting for faster forms of evolution than classic Darwinian Theory, particularly if it too is broadened to account for 'individual and social, biological intelligence' -- i.e., the power to compensate, modify, mutate, adjust, change -- in even the smallest of animals and plants like 'ants' and 'viruses' and 'bacteria' that are not generally regarded as having 'intelligence'. Even plants can be said to have 'intelligence' in that, for example, they will bend towards the sun, and certain plants -- like say the 'pau d arco' plant -- have 'learned' to fight off and become 'immune' to, its arch enemy -- fungi -- in ways that can only be described as 'learned over time' and 'immune function based on plant intelligence'.
All of this brings us back to the question of, 'Where did this intelligence come from?', and was/is there something 'more all-encompassing, and/or more all-overseeing' that put this type of 'evolutionary intelligence' into every animal, mineral, and plant on earth.
Now it is a major leap of 'faith', 'trust', 'assumption', 'presumption', or a 'suspension of disbelief' as they say in the entertainment business, to jump from 'intellignet design' theory and even the idea of an 'intelligent designer' -- which could be a more intelligent race of people from a different world who may be playing with this world as their 'hobby' or 'university course' -- to the idea of 'God' which include many, many more assumptions -- and probably man-made 'idealistic projections' -- than an 'intelligent designer' theory.
Thus, as an empirically and rationally based philosopher (or at least that is what I would like to think that I am), I can state with conviction that the idea of an 'intelligent designer' theory can be rationally and empirically supported; however, the 'leap of faith' if you will, or 'leap into metaphysics', or 'suspension of disbelief' that takes us from intelligent designer theory to 'God' -- cannot be rationally, empirically, and/or epistemologically supported in the same way.
We look back now at the many 'Gods' of the ancient Greeks -- a 'God of War', a 'God of Love', etc. -- and we partly smile and call them 'myths'.
What would cause us to believe that the 'one God' that many people believe in today, and that most religions righteously trumpet, would be any less of a 'myth' than the 20 Gods that are now being called a myth, some 2700 years ago.
There is only one possible reason: many people NEED to believe in God (for example, fear of death) -- even if this means 'suspending their epistemological sense of disbelief' in order to sustain their belief in God's existence -- and an 'afterlife'.
This is not to say that all myths are bad; there are plenty of myths, fairy tales -- and Gods -- that may, indeed do, play a useful and functional role in man's life (eg. Santa Clause, Peter Pan, the tooth fairy, and so on...)
However, from an empirical philosopher's point of view, the existence of God cannot be rationally supported -- are we really to believe that 'God' has no 'lifespan' and no 'physical presence or boundaries'. (If we believe that God has no boundaries, then we are, in effect, getting close to Spinoza's idea of spiritual pantheism -- 'God is Nature' or 'God is everywhere and in everything'.
Any orthodox or unorhodox form of religion or belief in God is simply a different form of myth. If you want to -- or need to -- choose a 'God' myth; just make sure that it is beneficial to both you and the people around you, and be tolerant of other people's 'myths' as long as they do not violate any human rights laws as put forth by the United Nations, and/or any and every humanistic country that does not tolerate religious suppression and violence.
Whether you are a Muslim, a Catholic, a Protestant, an Anglican, a Mormon, a Jew, or a Spinozian Pantheist, the question of importance is not whether your God 'exists' or not; but rather, whether you are a 'better' or 'worse' person for your belief in the 'myth' of 'God'.
Mythologically and functionally, 'God' -- in any form -- can be supported, if it makes you a better person to yourself and others. Epistemologically, the existence of God can't -- at least not based on any kind of rational philosophical empiricism that I can come up with.
I do not have any problem with the president of The United States being a mormon -- or any other 'humanistic' religion.
However, I have a big problem with politics, the State, and religion being epistemologically and ethically connected.
You do not bring a myth to epistemology, law, science, or politics any more than you would a fairy tale; and you do not lead a country based on either a myth or a fairy tale in situations where good, sound, credible, reliable, empirical epistemology is what is needed.
Thus, when and where I use the term and concept 'God', I am using it symbolically, mythologically, and spiritually -- but not epistemoligically. This is a very, very important distinction, not only for me, but for anyone who is seriously interested in digging into the ethical merit of their religion, and the relative health or pathology of the particular religious ideas that they are being asked or told to 'buy into'.
Ask not first what you can do for your religion, but rather what your religion can do for you, the people who are practising the religion, and the people outside of the religion. Is it helping people to live happier lives? Or is it making people miserable? Is it making the people within the religion more tolerant, caring, and peaceful towards other people? Or is it making people righteously intolerant, unaccepting, even aggressive and violent towards other people of differing religious or unreligous ideas? Is it making people submissive and masochistic? Or is it making people assertive and independent in balance with compassionate, caring, and socially sensitive and giving? I am looking for a new evolution and breed of religions -- of any name or faith be it Christian, Muslim, Jewish, or any other form of religion -- that is based on 'humanistic-existential values and ethics'; not squashing the same.
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