The back-and-forth interchanges between the religious and the nonreligious have a long history. Today, religious leaders decry the materialistic nature of modern societies and the moral inadequacies of the sciences. A cultured elite decries the ill-informed nature of religious beliefs. It is as common as it is striking that humans are quite capable of living in alternate realities while nevertheless inhabiting the same world.

Where religions have previously assumed privileged authority, evidence across major fields of knowledge supports alternative nonreligious explanations. Psychologists track the underlying motivations for religious beliefs, and sociologists observe religions as unifying forces in society that political leaders exploit. Neurobiologists identify correlations between brains and beliefs, the product of natural evolutionary adaptation. Crucial religious claims have little or no scientific credibility.

Apologists of religion, undaunted, respond to each type of criticism. Images of God are correlated to human nature. Religiously guided practices provide a source of unity and value in society. Historical narratives are didactic and inspirational. Finding psychological wholeness in the transcendent is no illusion. Scientific approaches are always restricted by their methodological commitments. Brains and beliefs correlate because they are designed by God.

The critical points of the dispute are not new. The charge of anthropomorphism reminds us of Xenophanes (500 B.C.), who noted that if cows described their god, it would moo.

And so it goes. The quest for certainty cycles from the empirical sciences back around to faith and hope beyond reason and objectivity. The limits of one support the desirability of the other. Each has a rationale, virtues to be exercised, yet neither seems sufficient to eliminate its critics.

Even without a decidable winner, we all win as participants in the interchanges. Each path explores an option of our existential possibilities. What it means to be human is being defined by the way we scope out these territories of meaning.

This does not lessen our responsibilities as decision makers. It provides support for a kind of ecological sensibility of thinking, a critical resourcefulness that helps us all to progress and enhance our standing on this small planet in the vast cosmic expanse.

Existence might ultimately remain a mystery, but it is one we desire to appreciate as best we can, with the best standards of judgment and practices, given our capacities and limitations.

To advance in this enterprise, everyone needs help from educational institutions with teachers trained in their respective subjects. Rather than resolvers of such issues, they can provide disciplinary expertise and skill development covering fields of information from anthropology to zoology, with philosophy and religious studies included along the way. We should welcome and desire all the help we can get as we try to think through issues of fundamental concern.

Restrictive or inadequate education exploits the good will of the innocent. Freedom deserves to know what it is choosing in order not to be victimized, in order to claim and honor conscientious responsibility. Open education supports a culture committed to learning and communicating, even when alternate realities could continue to make up our shared world.