Today, I return to the God Conundrum and discussion of the rationality of the fiery, nonprogressive battling between (1) those who believe in God by faith or reason (theists) and (2) those who believe in No-God by faith or reason (non-theists). The theist consortium is composed primarily members belonging to monotheistic religions, Jews, Christians, Islam, Pure Land Buddhists, and some others. A minority of members are pantheists, polytheists, and Higher Power new age groupies. The non-theist consortium consists of hardcore atheists (believers in No-God), modern existentialists, the full spectrum of agnostics (in the sense of Thomas Huxley), and the scientific community which does not care much one way or the other.

There is a third consortium which rarely enters into debates concerning questions which are insolvable (at least for now) given the existing data, e.g., (1) Is there a God? (2) Does God intervene in our world? (3) Do Heaven or Hell exist in an afterlife? and so on. As the human intellect cannot provide any relevant data to support one point of view or another, such questions are rationally meaningless, outside of personal preference and pscyhoistic necessity. I have named this group, the scientific gnostics. They comprise a very small, unrecognized, and underappreciated consortium as to numbers, but are huge as to rational, parsimonious thinking.

I am sure that most members of this small group would find themselves in agreement with R. Buckminster Fuller when he wrote, “Sometimes I think we’re alone. Sometimes I think we’re not. In either case, the thought is quite staggering.” A statement befitting every, open-minded thinker who wants to answer useful questions by supplying supporting data and internally consistent linguistic models (mathematical or lexical).

The most disturbing, unpleasant, and irrational battles arise between the faith-based monotheists and the its faith-based atheists. The reason I apply the moniker, faith-based to both consortiums, is because neither group can nor wants to provide any rational support for its chosen myth. Both are unyielding extremists. Personally, I do not care what most persons in these two groups believe. My interest is to understand the actuality of our physical and its emergent psychoism, not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn the modes of religious expression (paraphrasing Spinoza).

Even worse, the various faith-based theists fight internally so to maim, kill, and destroy each other in the particular name each uses to name the God all agree is the same God. Crazy, indeed.

As there is no way to usefully reason, explore, and understand the natures of any existing relationships between God and the physical universe or between God and men and women with faithies, I will allow these two consortiums to be, hoping they will not extinguish our species.

However, it is important to have some idea of the current prevalence of “belief in a God or Higher Power” in America and Europe. Such prevalence being indicative of the phylogenetic expression of H. sapiens sapiens, as well as current social pressures, beliefs, and manipulation.

Following such review, we will begin discussing the historical answers gained from employing human reasoning and logic to the God Question, but in the end find them unconvincing for one reason or another. Lastly, we will see what the scientific gnostics have to offer as to the God Conundrum. Regardless of whether God exists or not as an active power in our physical universe, a scientific gnostic would advise, “You will do much better in life feeling that God believes in you and your efforts, than you will do with faith-based belief in God. After all, the Almighty surely needs not our belief.”