IS IT LOGICAL TO BELIEVE IN GOD?

IS IT LOGICAL TO BELIEVE IN GOD?

Are these extraordinary times? To win the ideological war against terrorism and protect the minds of youth from radicalization is engaging enough. Equally worrying is mounting evidence that too many people across continents may be losing their minds. Alongside possible over-population, joblessness and emasculation of the middle class, a contributory factor of significance might be mankind's lean store of knowledge of what it means to be human and to live in peace with the self and others. We could be looking at a generally unsuspected human identity crisis snowball into a possible ideological fight-to-finish.

How does a self-respecting person, scandalized, continue to identify with a religion harboring suicide terrorists or sexual predators? What does it mean to be human? And where is the logic in belief in God? This first discussion paper is a reminder that a logical God exists, potentially capable of ideologically reuniting theists and atheists into a formidable force for good. Section 1 establishes that a person can benefit from knowing God merely by name. Section 2 introduces the human identity and morality quandary by exposing some peculiarities of the knowledge of what it means to be human. Section 3 demonstrates that the truth of existence of the logical God is a priori. Section 4 pinpoints three logical points of agreement between theists and atheists, and the possible point in philosophy at which if at all, they might go separate ways in peace. Section 5 considers more of the possible conceptual errors of theists and atheists and calls for bridge building. Section 6 contains the concluding thoughts.

KNOWING THE LOGICAL CONTENT OF GOD

Philosophers are not lesser beings for inability to rise up to the relative certainty of science. Top-drawer intellectual goods, such as infallibility, reliability and certainty of knowledge might only be structurally incompatible with philosophy. If we consider morality at home and abroad for example, what is moral to the Palestinian may be immoral to the Israeli. Morality as a term is of such interest to philosophy because it is not yet a universal. Some say that an object of knowledge detains the philosopher only if universality is missing. Once universally known as "so-and-so", the object is relegated to science and the philosopher can find other things to do.

All categories of knowledge are equal. No knowledge (e.g. science) is more equal than the other, in this case philosophy particularly knowledge of what it means to be human. The nature of knowledge of the human attitudinal content might be indistinguishable from you and I: complex, unpredictable, evolving. It should be added in passing that the question of what makes the human tick boils down to what it means to possess intellect, over and above the feelings, desires, will and perhaps emotion carried over from ape to man. Some philosophers, notably St. Thomas Aquinas, Descartes and Leibnitz could have tried without much success to demonstrate through ratiocination that the propositional content of religion is true. Others, such as Russell, thought it to be futile to try to explain phenomena like the content of religion in language and context that makes sense to the human intellect. But for at least four reasons, possible inference that religious belief is illogical is not immediate to the premise that the content of religion cannot be logically explained to the intellect.

First and perhaps foremost, knowledge of content, by description or analysis, is not all there is to intelligence. Analogous to the notion of God, the most important objects are generally known by mere acquaintance or name. You don't have to possess scientific knowledge that water is two parts of hydrogen and one part of oxygen before you assert with confidence that you know water, and can put water to intelligent use. Nor do you need to know the difference between oxygen and carbon dioxide before you acquire the intelligent belief that you are in need of some fresh air. You might relate intelligently to other persons, even get married, despite that knowing the content of others' minds is wishful thinking. I know cancer only by name, neither by acquaintance nor description of content, but this suffices for me to take care. Science, too, is not as yet certain of the logical content of cancer. But science continues to admit patients to hospitals in the intelligent belief that the growth of the tumor in the patient's body can be restrained. If the content of God cannot as yet be broken down into logical parts, possible inference that people of faith are unintelligent might just possibly be mistaken. Secondly, part of the challenge of decoding God or cancer could be that the intellect is quite a recent arrival in the evolution of our planet. Intellectual capacity could unfold in the future, resulting in deeper understanding of cancer and the sometimes seemingly unintelligible scriptural parables.

Thirdly, one grain of knowledge stands taller than a mountain of ignorance. Human knowledge is a tricky subject partly because knowledge of the same object can vary widely from one person to the next in width and depth. My knowledge of how to play football can be miles apart in width and depth, and therefore in meaning, from the suave moves of Lionel Messi. Individual maturity also suggests that the knowledge of experiencing the right emotions in most situations (a bit like Aristotle's definition of the moral life) tends to deepen with age. Lastly, it must be challenging to make analytic sense of historical narratives of good and evil comingled in the scriptures with parables of predictions and morality plus perhaps a bit of entertainment.

All told, the intellectualist may be as put on the spot as the religionist. Questions of human identity and morality collapse into a general lack of clarity regarding the practical role of intellect in human affairs and the possible advantages and disadvantages. Against the background of the state of the world today, the possibility cannot also be excluded that the scriptures hide in parables some illumination of the "intellect question". We hope to demonstrate that this might be the case in a subsequent discussion paper. The next section considers the unknown-known character of the knowledge of what it means to be human.

KNOWLEDGE OF WHAT IT MEANS TO BE HUMAN

Knowledge of the mere name of an object, cancer for example, can sometimes suffice for intelligence. In case God can intelligently be taken to exist at least in name, human language may not as yet suffice to circumscribe and capture the mind, emotion or will of this God. The explanandum -the object of explanation or God -may be generally known in some sense. Humans saddled with intellect cannot afford to live in absolute ignorance, uncertainty or disagreement over the logical content of the human identity and ideology or morality. Science is but one compartment of the human armory of knowledge. Computers, mobile phones and space travel are, as awesome as they come, insufficient to compensate for an increasingly global, physical and emotional environment of joblessness, trauma, wars, suicide terrorism and rising cases of depression.

If scientific certainty is unattainable over the question of how a person should remain dignified in relating to the self and others, if ubiquitous names such as God, Knowledge, Morality, Emotion, etc continue to defy explanas, it should not be so unintelligent to settle for second-best reliability of knowledge based on ratiocination, approximation, probability, metaphor, sometimes even trial and error, speculation and conjecture. Atheists and religionists hence beg the question when the one insists that the onus is on the other to prove scientifically that God exists or not.

To recap, the want of explanas for God is characteristic of the class of knowledge of the possible pros and cons of possessing only intellect in separation from animals. This unknown-known character of the intellect can hardly be exonerated from the ongoing human identity and morality crises. Second, knowledge merely of name may suffice for believers to put whatever God represents in their minds and emotions to intelligent use. Third, to insist on mathematical infallibility over the content of religion is to miss the unknown-known or philosophical character of this category of knowledge. Section 3 proposes the truth of the logical God as a priori.

TRUTH OF EXISTENCE OF THE LOGICAL GOD AS A PRIORI

There is a logical name of God the truth of which atheists and religionists commonly know a priori. Knowledge of the logical God is a priori in the mild sense that it should be absurd for a rational person to contest the truth if she understands the propositional concepts. Let us consider an example: Much as the human world could seem like a madhouse with too many clearly avoidable problems, there is probably a certain pattern to the madness. Ludwig von Mises 1 says it better: If, rather than regularity in the sequence of natural phenomena, you could never predict planting and harvest seasons, or the seasons randomly alternated every indeterminate few minutes or hours, there could be no human life or civilization. Intellect and even primitive intelligence should be out of place in the absence of predictability and planning. Our common acquaintance with regularity suffices as epistemic justification for the belief, common also in scientific circles that there is a Cause or Energy, perhaps presently hiding somewhere out of human sight.

(T)he distinctive mark of what we call nature is to be seen in the ascertainable and inevitable regularity in

Science may be steadily closing in on the truth or name of this causal energy. What with tantalizing notions of Higgs Boson (which scientists fancy as "God Particle") and Dark Energy? Belief in the existence of a causal energy cannot be regarded as unjustified simply because science is yet to provide irreducible explanas. Even if science settles for God Particle, for a gross illustration, this is unlikely to significantly illuminate the human identity and morality questions.

These must remain objects mainly of logical ratiocination and philosophical speculation.

Additionally, Joyce 2 expresses in a syllogism the idea that this causal energy must be driven by some intelligence:

Whatever is due to the harmonious ordering of many parts is due to an intelligent cause;

The world displays the harmonious ordering of many parts; Therefore, the world is due to an intelligent cause.

The major premise of this syllogism is the observation of 1) harmony in ordering of the many parts of existence, and 2) the attribution of this harmony to an intelligent cause, as a necessary or a priori truth. Harmony of the stable or perpetual kind doesn't come cheap. Anywhere you observe systematic and sustainable harmony such as in great works of science or art or, more far-fetched, in human relations, your bet is good that some intelligence is at work and that this intelligence precedes the harmony.

The causal link between intelligence and the ability to pull off perpetual harmony is a necessary truth, which no one can justifiably be burdened to prove, and no one with understanding of the underlying concepts can dismiss lightly. Just in case intellectualists, atheists, evolutionists and scientists in general allow Joyce's syllogism, they therefore believe in the logical God. Belief in the logical God is the scientific, even trite belief that there is some causal energy behind natural phenomena.

Religionists have given the name, God, to this energy. Scientists burn the midnight oil searching for possible names and explanas. Intellectualists or atheists should also consider the likely logical and philosophical nature of this energy. Meanwhile, the energy could be anyone or a combination of physical, mechanical, chemical, electrical, magnetic, radioactive or other grades of energy as yet undiscovered or un-decoded by science. Dark Energy is for instance reputed to make up more than 80% of the known universe. The existence of Dark Energy cannot be proven but nobody seems to infer that it, therefore, does not exist. It has been scientifically sufficient to observe its effects -another explicandum in need of explicans.

It speaks to us, as humans that the world we know might not be up to 20% of reality. Out of this 20% or less, we may not know up to 50% by acquaintance and description of the name and content. The best of human knowledge for now may be limited to less than 10% of essential reality. Since 90% or more of essential reality might not be known with certainty in our generation, it is in our genetic makeup to ratiocinate, philosophize and speculate at least nine times for every one thing we know for sure. Minus hubris, it is not in our genetic makeup to summarily write-off the 90% or more of essential reality that cannot be proven, as altogether non-existent.

Lastly, early man might not have had as much grasp as we do today of the laws of chemical, electrical, magnetic, and radioactive, talk less dark energy. He should be forgiven for surmising that the Energy, which he called God, was a physical being in a physical abode called heaven. Alternatively, those who knew better (that this was some convenient explanation) could have struggled to explain causal energy to the impatient man in the street, in language other than the material or physical sense that he understood. It's not always so straightforward to teach logic and philosophy.

We should next consider what religionists could have intended to be understood by the name, God, and the possible connection to the causal energy.

2. Joyce, George Hayward, "Principles of Logic", Longmans, Greens and Co., 1908, p. viii.

IN THE NAME OF GOD

For an appreciation of the historical transition from the logical God to the conceptual, philosophical and potentially speculative and controversial God of religion, the reader should be on the same page in drawing the distinction between a logical, proper name and a conceptual, philosophical or more or less speculative name. This should enable us to pinpoint where the notion of the logical God ends and that of the philosophical or speculative God begins.

THE LOGICAL NAME AND THE PHILOSOPHICAL NAME

Hobbes 3 defines a name as:

(A) word taken at pleasure to serve for a mark which may raise in our mind a thought like to some thought we had before, and which being pronounced to others, may be to them a sign as to what thought the speaker had before in his mind (Computation or Logic, c.2).

Proper Names as Singular Terms serve only to identify or distinguish an individual person or object from other persons or objects, e.g., Sun, Lion, Mrs. Jane Simpson, etc. We are interested in the root of the problem between theism and atheism. The unknown-known existence of a causal energy might be their strongest possible common ground. Intelligence and harmony, explanas of the causal energy, could however suffice for possible bridge building between theism and atheism. But there are at least two weaker platforms on which they might meet each other halfway. At age 5, Rauf has come to understand that Mrs. Simpson is white -thanks to a budding intellect. He has learnt to take a universally understood concept (white) and determine that Mrs. Simpson fits the bill or is a proper object of that concept. The foregoing is intended to enable us to put into an analytical context arguably the most controversial name on the planet, God. The question is whether God is a Proper Name or a Conceptual Name, a logical name or a descriptive or philosophical name.

We can guess for an answer that God, like Mrs. Simpson in the mind of Rauf probably started out as a proper name. Most people definitely understand God in English and other languages as a proper name. God, Buddha, Allah, Jehovah, Olodumare (West Africa Yoruba theology) are irreducible to mathematical parts. It is yet possible that the word God in English was not originally a proper name in the strict sense. If "God" at inception denoted the causal energy it could have had a descriptive or judgmental meaning, perhaps fallen into relative disuse.

The term God can only be shorthand for Plato's concept of the Good, the Highest Good or the Greatest Good. This might suggest that the word God is an explicandum in need of explicans, unless we can agree on Plato's justification for explication of the causal energy in terms of the Greatest Good, next in Section 4.2.

THREE AGREEMENTS BETWEEN THEISTS AND ATHEISTS

The term, Greatest Good, should not be mistaken for the utilitarian ethics of an action measured by its capacity to result in the Greatest Good of the Greatest Number, or with other "altruistic" apologies for collectivism or communism and other political undertones of Statism. The Good, for Plato, meant specifically the causal energy behind natural phenomena, the energy that changes everything whilst itself remains unchanged. Since knowledge was the basis of all good or virtue, Plato's Greatest Good could have rated the causal energy as the greatest possible object of scientific and philosophical knowledge. The greatest knowledge a person can acquire for sustainable existence on earth is as much as possible of intelligence on this life-source or controlling force.

On the other hand, the logical connection of the Greatest Good to the causal energy could have become blurred along the noisy roads of history with fads of changing times. For instance, lovers of civil liberties seem sure that in formulation and implementation of public policy, the individual is the greatest good or object of highest consideration. Anti-individualists counter that the State is the greatest good: the life and death of the individual is justified only on perceptions of what is good for the State. Plato's Greatest Good could gradually have receded from general awareness.

The point to note is that atheists, intellectualists, creationists, evolutionists and religionists probably agree that the causal energy constitutes the greatest possible object of scientific and philosophical enquiry and knowledge. It is only in this sense that the seeming dogma in religion -to love God above all and that God created humans to worship Him -ends up saying anything. God the causal energy gave rise to the human spirit of God or intellect, just in order that the human might have an additional window, over and above animals, to perceive increasingly more of God the causal energy.

Just in case the foregoing is allowable, God is still by and large a proper name, not an explanandum with potentially controversial or speculative explanas. We are still safely in the land of logic. We could push our luck. There is possibly a third level of agreement: if the causal energy is behind natural phenomena, it is also likely behind the emergence of humans on earth or, always more correctly, behind the infusion of intellect, the spirit or spark of God, into the animal-man. This third form of agreement might however be the limit. We should be pushing our luck too far if we looked forward to universal agreement over details of how the human intellect could precisely have been woven into the brain of the animal-man. It is over this question of how that atheists and religionists may have been fated to draw lines in the sand.

5-year old Rauf has another friend, 6-year old Paul. Paul's mother is not on good terms with Mrs. Simpson. Rauf declares that Mrs. Simpson is the kindest woman in town. Paul swears she is the most evil on the planet. Rauf is infuriated; Paul is mad. The two budding philosophers break into a fight, beating each other black and blue… As humans evolved and formed incremental thoughts, folklores and schools of thought sprang up in every culture. Each presumed its own narrative of the causal energy to be the final truth. Like with Rauf, it is at this point that intellectual opportunities begin to walk hand in glove with potential emotional pitfalls.

The critical point to be registered next must hence be counter-factual. If there were no dissent between religionists and atheists over precise details of how the causal energy created the intellect, both camps would not be made up of "normal" human beings. It should be incongruous to expect intellectuals or thinkers -who could not agree over what it is to be human, to possess intellect, to lead a moral life and relate in peace -to agree on the likely "trade secrets" and intendments of God the causal energy. Let's next consider the religion question and the departure between theists and atheists.

POINT OF DEPARTURE BETWEEN THEISTS AND ATHEISTS

We have considered the three logical levels of relatively proper names over which religionists and atheists can find agreement. One more move and we could have sunken into philosophizing over possible parallels between God and man with attendant risks of anthropomorphism. Is this causal energy good, evil, both, or like water and air, neutral? Might this source of life be happy that the men of the world could have turned life into a living nightmare for too many women and children? Could the causal energy have provided intellect to see (perhaps test) how humans would figure out the "operating instructions" in order to promote intelligence and harmony with nature and between themselves?

The "ancient of days" in religion is marked by intelligence and harmony. So much for intellect: the human race is intelligent only if there is harmony on the planet. Meanwhile, trouble could have started with the possibly harmless philosophical speculation that if the causal energy possesses intelligence, it must of necessity also have a mind. It is difficult, if not impossible for humans to imagine an entity possessing intelligence outside of a mind. Intelligence dwells in the mind, as far as the human can tell, and mind dwells in the physical body. Further, in case the causal energy has a mind, it also probably carries intentions, desires, will and perhaps emotion. The transition from logic to philosophy proves to be a watershed.

Intellectual progress becomes possible only to the extent that philosophy secures incremental specificity in universally agreed concepts, in order to further inform and enrich the existing body of the logical names (intelligence and harmony) of the causal energy. Rather than continue to build on the minimum points they could agree upon, however, atheists and religionists could have forgotten that they ever agreed on anything or shouldered any common responsibility to continue to enlarge the scope of their agreement.

Certain accidents of history could have served to emotionalize the schism between religion and intellectualism. The search for all forms of knowledge had started from monasteries until the clergy, being only human like you and I, discovered that political power could be there for the taking in the name of God. If you had political power, you could soon own the world. The temptation could have been irresistible. Like good politicians cum businessmen, religionists could have wasted no time in seemingly taking out a franchise on God, the same causal energy that is the origin of all life. The propositional or interpretational dictates of "the men of God" regarding the intentions and even emotions of the "ancient of days" were soon to be taken, on pain of death, as absolute and literal truth however outlandish.

As a resolutely partisan and expansionist political movement, religion had come to mean that you were not allowed to use your intellect. Throw it away before it gets you into trouble. Competitively glamorous edifices had been erected for habitation of the unknown-known causal energy. The causal energy now resided mainly in places of worship, which could just possibly in the beginning have been prestigious places of organized study of the intellect question. Religion, which started out as possible compass for the intellect, had been corrupted enough to become the persecutor-in-chief of the same intellect. The politicization of the search for knowledge of the causal energy meant, remarkably, that God was no longer the Greatest Good in Plato's sense of the highest object of knowledge.

Did knowledge matter anymore? The success of the political arm of religion came to be measured by the number of new nations "converted" in the name of a God that had become alienated from intellectuality. Politics was king. A good way for the political clergy to describe their twisted ideology was in terms of what it was not: neither the individual nor the State was the Greatest Good, and the Greatest Good of the Greatest Number was not the Greatest Evil of the Greatest Number, or Satan for short. The identity of the causal energy had become fragmented into self-contradictory parts. As a movement with logical and philosophical pretensions, religion at this point could have shot itself in the foot and boxed itself into a corner.

Religion could hardly make further intellectual progress with the notion of a God in separation from Satan, a causal energy in separation from an equally causal, but opposite energy. The excesses of religion could have been source of irritation and alienation to many in the last three centuries. People could have started to wonder whether God in separation was the one deserving of worship or Satan, and whether worship had anything at all to do with logic, reason or human welfare. Is there a logical God in the sense of the doting, uncritical father in heaven? It could appear debatable. But no, is the clear answer even according to the scriptures. The philosophic Greatest Good could have created only opportunities and threats, which plants and animals have learnt to navigate in relative dignity with mere instinct.

The same opportunities and threats are what nature expects the human to deploy intellect to pursue and overcome. It might be pardonable for the primitive human to run helter to Zeus for protection from volcanoes and skelter to Neptune to avert tsunamis. This is the twenty first century. In the matter of evolution of the knowledge of what it means to be human, it could be living in sin or in denial of the intellect to cling to the logically and scripturally irredeemable idea of good in separation from evil in naturally occurring entities, outside of transient emotional perception of human conduct or misfortune.

The dismemberment of the truth of the causal energy, in whose image the human was inevitably created, renders logical resolution of the human identity and morality questions unduly difficult. Meanwhile, atheism could have seemed logically inevitable to many thinkers who had probably forgotten or are unaware of the root causes of the "religion question". Section 5 next considers the possible logical future of religion and intellectualism before we conclude.

THE LOGICAL FUTURE OF BELIEF AND UNBELIEF

Due to man-made accidents of history, the danger now increases by the day that mankind throws away the baby (true religious teachings) with the bathwater (dirty religionists' politicking). We may too hastily trash an invaluable store of clues to the human identity and morality questions. The future of religion may however rest significantly on outgrowing possible interpretational conceit in explicating the content of God, an unhelpful arrogation carried over from a politicized past. If religion had adapted the concept of evil to get the attention of early man -who stopped at nothing including human sacrifice -the state of the world today signals that a rethink must be overdue.

If the choice boiled down to who to worship between God and Satan, the same emotion that misled humans to sacrifice each other in earlier times guaranteed that Satan would be king. You could begin to see devil everywhere. Fear had been the emotion that got the primitive man thinking about gods to "bribe" or placate. The scientifically recognized, suggestible human mind might just be capable of creating Satan and sustaining the phantom. Humans that created evil can, as soon as the morn of intellect or Kingdom of God is dawn, find little difficulty in un-creating it.

All told, rational leaders and followers across the world already have their plates full with suicide terrorism, burgeoning number of mentally ill, yawning gap between rich and poor, etc. Mutual antagonism between leaders of thought, particularly religionists and atheists only displaces vital resources just when it matters most for lovers of the good to join forces. This section seeks logical support for theists and atheists to close ranks. The possible logical future of theism is considered next.

THE LOGICAL FUTURE OF THEISM

Praxeology is the branch of philosophy concerned with the study of human action. The logical future of religion can be painted with the brush of the proposition that however technologically advanced we become, mankind can never rise beyond three categories of action that are also basic at the animal level. These fundamental praxeological categories of intelligent action are: Grooming, Competition and Cooperation. Despite computers and mobile phones, the human is unlikely to be caught doing anything of significance beyond grooming, competing or cooperating.

Reading is, for instance, a form of mental or intellectual grooming. The state of the world today reflects the fact that mankind's bandwagon of knowledge of what it means to cooperate could be running on empty. Most things we learn in school empower us to become more and more competitive rather than cooperative, more animated or agitated rather than calm. Cooperation is at present discussed or learnt mostly in religious or spiritual circles. Many swear that animals cooperate better not only with other animals but also with humans, e.g., the dog, the human's best friend.

Mankind may be so lacking in the knowledge of what it means to cooperate that there is a clear case for global enquiry. The "cooperation question" is considered in a subsequent paper. Let's take a quick look for now at why religious bodies occupy such a unique position in addressing the problem.

The Logical Warrant of Religion

In the matter of cooperation, mankind may be lighting candles only to hide them under a bushel. Each time we seem to calm down or come back to our senses and decide to cooperate, we end up forgetting that we started out to cooperate and find ourselves doing what we know and do best: competing more fiercely than ever. The European Union, the United Nations and similar bodies are a treasure trove of intelligence, beginning from their humble antecedents, in a critical study and evaluation of mankind's cooperation record, the possible lessons and the future prospects.

We know grooming at least in the physical sense. A subsequent discussion paper proposes mental and emotional grooming in direct consequence of possession of intellect. We know a lot, perhaps too much of competition. The world today is desperately in need of the logic and philosophy of cooperation. However, as is the complex nature of human knowledge, mankind might have subconsciously made more progress than we dare imagine. At least by now we know, or should know from the theatre of competition between Palestinians and Israelis that raw instinct and raw emotion can be quick to start a fight, but are entirely clueless when it comes to rising above the issues in contention in order to move forward.

The materially hypersensitive but emotionally inert contestants become miserable sticks in the mud, waiting in animated hopelessness for the day of the intellect or Kingdom of God, or perhaps Kingdom of mutual annihilation. Further, we should have learnt by now that horse-trading and name-calling are bush-league for those minded to rise above the excesses of competition and begin to cooperate, or for those who simply enjoy looking forward to occasional moments of peace. Much of what is left may be to develop what has been hopefully learnt -the hard way -into a disciplined body of knowledge.

Meanwhile, after you have combed the scriptures and sifted out the historical narratives of peace and war, of hatred and love, of selfishness and selflessness; after filtering away the shaft, the cream, to be found in the definitive teachings of the prophets, might one day come to be recognized as vital hints at the logic and philosophy, of human cooperation. Religion retains vantage point in the acquisition and dissemination of the knowledge of what it means to possess intellect or spirit of God. As soon as the day is dawn and we finally chose intellect and peace, there are vast resources available to be deployed and immeasurable gains to be expected.

Shall we fail in passing to notice possible cheering news for the future of religion in Pope Francis, who might have taken the Kingdom of God by storm and is busy chasing merchants and moneychangers out of the House of God? The Pope may be busy driving away the stale smell of raw instinct and raw emotion (the beast or evil) from the precincts of intellect or spirit of God. For possible makeover of religion, there is probably another proposition over which atheists and religionists ought to find agreement. The logical warrant of religion may be proposed as follows:

(1) The human world is attributable to an intelligent cause that harmoniously orders the many parts of existence.

(2) This intelligent cause brought about human creation ENTIRELY by addition of intellect to animal-man.

(3) Therefore, this intelligent cause is a monitor of mankind's effectiveness in applying intellect towards harmonious ordering of the many parts of individual and group existence.

A geneticist who has succeeded in marginally enhancing the intelligence of a chimp has set herself up to be busy soon, monitoring and testing for corresponding increase in the quality of behavior of the modified chimp, again in the specific areas of grooming, competition and cooperation with others. Even if we allow that it may not be unintelligent in some world to disbelieve the existence of God the causal Energy, religion assures us that the spark of God (intellect) inheres in every person. The intellect or spark of God need not wait for the same God from the skies.

The intellect is sufficient to appraise itself once awakened, to stand back and rethink its own effectiveness in illuminating possible strategies for harmonious ordering of the many parts of individual and group existence.

With the basic theoretical teachings and institutions in place, religion has an important role to play in advancing the "know-how" and "know-that" of human cooperation including conflict resolution. However, charity begins at home. One obstacle to intellectual progress in the house of religion is the absence of a common key to interpretation of scriptures, considered next.

The Logical Way to Interpret Scriptures

Some food for thought is possible error on the part of creationists who swear that every proposition in the holy books is literal, and the equal and opposite waste of time on the part of others who take this possible error too seriously. Outside emotionalism, there might be a logical way to interpret scriptures. Qur'an 3:7 can be inspiring: Chapter 3:7 parades a good grasp of the knowledge of what it means to be human by taking special care to insert this interpretation clause. This must have been intended to preclude infiltration of interpretation by cultural and individual rigidities and inadequacies. An important deduction from the foregoing is that the creationist may just possibly be self-deceived trying perhaps a bit too hard to prove that the creation parable is literal. For one, to prove that Darwin's evolution theory is inadequate on account of the possible missing link or any other reason does not add up to evidence of truth of the creation allegory.

For another, even with possible evidence of Garden of Eden, you cannot tender a sample of the sand that God used in creation or a sample of His breath. Even if you were able to do these, your problems might be just about to start. Those that in the language of religion, God is yet to call (those who are yet to raise emotion to the non-partisan level of the intellect) must continue to rule out the mere possibility of any object they cannot fully understand. This absolutist arrogation is despite that the human may not be given to know up to 10% of essential reality.

A subsequent discussion paper hopes to demonstrate that the parable of Eden, decoded, may be logically compatible with evolution theory and even "ancient astronauts theory", just in case one is looking out for intelligence and harmony rather than discord. The subsequent paper also considers the possible meta-human ontology of the intellect. The average person is potentially insane or psychologically perverse partly because she possesses an intellect that is incomparable in cognitive superiority to the animated owner. Conscience, if it exists, can be explained only in these terms.

The intellect is not at the beck and call of the owner in the way you can always instinctively pick a race with your legs. Too many people find it rather difficult and frustrating to commune with their intellect. How does a person receive communion from her intellect? Shall we speculate, as philosophizing is in our DNA? You know how to calmly comport yourself before settling down to read, write or say a prayer? Like the wise biblical virgin who has procured oil for lamp in readiness for her prince, there is a certain way that the human subdues or neutralizes emotions in signification of readiness to receive her intellect. Calm relaxation is the sweet and only possible way to the intellect or spirit of God, like the meek inherit the earth.

The point of the foregoing is that we are all in it together, in the predicament of not knowing, yet knowing, the intellect or spirit of God. Religionists should neither be ashamed nor need to offer apologies for not being omniscient. Rather, to borrow a line from Christ: religionists including intellectualists and other adorers of the intellect are the salt of the world (apostles of cooperation); but what happens if the salt has lost its savor or religionists and intellectualists have lost their sense of cooperation?

Emphasis should shift to studying, debating and distilling the scriptures in a cooperative and all-inclusive rather than competitive environment, for deeper understanding of the specific teachings of the prophets, e.g. love God above all and love your neighbor as yourself, love your enemy, etc. Meanwhile, it's official: terrorism is the ideology of "those in whose hearts is perversity". This could be good for public enlightenment campaigns and should be understood to apply to all scriptures. Let's next consider the possible logical future of atheism.

THE LOGICAL FUTURE OF ATHEISM

The central question posed by the intellectualist cum atheist, John G. Messerly 5 in an Internet post of 21 st December 2014 titled "Religion's smartpeople problem: The Shaky Intellectual Foundations of Absolute Faith" is whether it is intelligent for a rational person to acquire or retain belief in God. Messerly writes:

(I)ntelligence is an adaptation that aids survival. Yet it also forms causal narratives for natural occurrences and postulates the existence of other minds. Thus the idea of hidden Gods explaining natural events was born.

Messerly's argument can be broken down into four parts.

(1) Intelligence aids survival by trying to rationalize or explain the probable causes of observed phenomena.

(2) It is in trying to explain the intelligence attributed to causation that humans came about the idea of God and, by extension, mind of God.

(3) Religion has failed to come up with infallible or scientific explanas for the explanandum, mind of God, on the same level of epistemic authority as the evolution theory.

(4) Therefore, God the causal energy does not exist.

Messerly probably has no problem with the idea of a causal energy. But if religion has failed to be persuasive about the truth of the mind of the causal energy, the logical deduction is that religion has failed the test of explicans. You could even say religion is unreal. It is just possible that the plea of the essential intellectualist or atheist that God does not exit overlooks some generally known and accepted but perhaps buried fact.

In order to advance humanity's knowledge of what it means to cooperate with each other, all adorers of intellect should give serious consideration to teaming up with religionists to debate and hopefully discover more explanas of the mind of God or ways of the intellect: c'est la meme chose. This teaming up has become all-important in order to defeat the ideology of terrorism and, in championing the knowledge of what it means to possess intellect or spark of God, empower the average person to self-help in reducing her chances of contracting depression and other mental illnesses. 5. Messerly, John G., author of "The Meaning of Life: Religious, Philosophical, Scientific and Transhumanist Perspectives", blogs at reasonandmeaning.com or twitter @hume1955.