With the idea of god, early humans were imagining a being who understands things well enough to build them. If there's a God who comprehends the world, and we're made in His image, then we, too, might someday understand. As Stephen Hawking famously said, to comprehend the world is to "know the mind of God."

Humans gain understanding, and hence a measure of control, by building models. A model is a representation of an object or phenomenon that simulates aspects of the real thing. Models take the form of theories that describe natural phenomena, stories or human beings themselves who show us how to behave, and spreadsheets that forecast how businesses will fare. By studying models we can anticipate the behaviors of the real world phenomena they mirror.

For most of human history, though religious models met a need for shared communal beliefs, they lacked explanatory power. Today, they're often dismissed as mere myths, but it's more fruitful to think of them as stepping stones to better models. We now understand some things far better than our ancestors, and other things not much better at all. Whether we'll ever know God's mind is an open question, but that our models of Nature are good enough to steal some of His thunder has been answered decisively with twentieth century technology. If E = mc² is a jewel in crown of modern science, the golden rule, which embodies a symmetry reminiscent of those that shape physics models, is a gem in religious thought.

In addition to the world's comprehensibility and the golden rule--which by themselves warrant a tip of the hat to religion--there is also the notion of universal dignity.

Theistic religions proclaim the existence of a personal, caring god--a "father" who loves all his "children" equally, according them equal dignity regardless of their status, rank, or role. The universality of dignity is not a description of life as we know it, but rather a prescription for life as it's arguably becoming. As Martin Luther King, Jr. put it, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."

Though we should anticipate setbacks, the circle of dignity is slowly expanding. Explicit demands for dignity fuel recent protests in the Middle East, Russia, Burma, China and, in the form of the Occupy Movement, in North America.

Like good science models, the golden rule and the universality of dignity derive their power not from the zeal of true believers, but from the truths they encapsulate. The alternative to fundamentalism is not relativism, it's ever more realistic models.

Ingredients of a Beautiful Friendship
Learning to see science models as provisional has resulted in unimaginable technological and economic gains. By taking a page from science, and embracing the improvability of personal beliefs and religious teachings, religion could foster parallel gains in personal growth, social harmony, and international cooperation.

The truth is we've been living without absolutes from the start. There really never were any, but until now we've needed to believe in them much as children fix on certain beliefs while they find their footing. With adolescence, we temper these beliefs, and with maturity we can let go of belief in belief itself.

That any of the currently accepted scientific theories could, in principle, be incorrect or incomplete is taken for granted by scientists. To insist, for example, that the theory of evolution is "just a theory" is only to state what every scientist knows and accepts. Of course, it's a theory. What else could it be? But it's a rigorously tested theory and it makes sense to use it until