What is Your Approach?

[Whateverist]

However, considering the possibility of whether or not God is real and existent outside of our psyche, the only way to derive the answer is through a more thorough search.

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But before we begin such an endeavor, we must honestly ask ourselves whether we are approaching the task with a determination to justify our opinions, negate another's stance, or discover the truth.

I have no problem with your belief in God. Please do carry on believing what you will, and I mean no disrespect to you for what you believe. But I think in asking the question -whether you are seeking the truth about God, looking to confirm your beliefs or looking to negate another's- you have to admit you are already prejudicing the question to the degree that you admit the bible as an authoritative source above others.

We all very naturally look to confirm what we already believe. It is wired into us and happens pre-consciously through no effort of our own. Now recognizing this I for one am not of the opinion we should butcher any beliefs which science can't vouchsafe. I think there is much more to what we are than our conscious minds and I wouldn't want to relegate that much responsibility or authority to just the part of me I can hold in my conscious attention. I have no good reason to assume that just the part of me under my narrow control is superior to the totality of myself.

Of course if you seriously want to pursue beliefs in gods and such as you would an inquiry into the natural world, then you have to discipline yourself to avoid bias to the greatest extent possible and open yourself to critique from those similarly engaged. I personally wouldn't seek to do this because I don't think that what gives rise to belief in gods is out there in the world to be studied. I think it is to be found in the architecture of how our meat brains give rise to consciousness, and science is very far from closing in on that understanding.

Since I believe all such beliefs arise in our brains I think they have only phenomenological existence there but no where else in the world. Since we have and are our brains, we are certainly entitled to honor the gods we produce at least as much as the 'self' which our brain also produces. You might say gods and selves are on a similar footing, except one is "I" and the other is, well, other. But both arise and exist in a similar way - whatever that may be.