Science helps us create an extremely accurate model of Reality, enabling us to do amazing things (both constructive and destructive). Religion helps us to arrive at conclusions as to what we should and should not do (our ethical beliefs). And among the things we should do, I believe, are those things designed to optimize our spirituality. And religion can make use of science in that effort. Spirituality is a part of our Subjective Model, but through our Objective Model, we have the ability to influence, and therefore to improve, our spirituality. What I advocate is that we optimize our spirituality such as to promote not only the survival of our species but also the good life for everyone, now and in the future, the "good life" meaning, as I am using the term, as much joy, contentment, and appreciation as possible and as little pain, suffering, disability, and early death (PSDED) as possible.

Spirituality is a part of our basic way of being, just as is our possession of hands. With our hands we can do good things and bad things, and that is true of our spirituality also, I would contend.

So what we have looked at is the possibility that attention to spirituality has the potential for changing ourselves in drastic ways, such that we become, as a species, far better than we have ever been able to be so far.

All of this suggests that spirituality is to some extent essential to a good quality of life and can even be unusually beneficial to self and others, but that spirituality cannot automatically be regarded as all good for everyone.

Spirituality is highly personal. Some of us would be prone to say that we did not "believe in" spirituality, even though, using the meanings in this discussion, they would be having the normal experiences that could be called "spirituality." They would be referring to their understanding that the sciences had not demonstrated the existence of "spirits" of any sort, and that belief in the existence of such entities would constitute belief in the "supernatural." It should be evident from what I have so far written that there is no basis for praise or criticism for either a stated belief in spirituality or a stated criticism of it. The acid test, so to speak, is the quality of life of the individual and the quality of life of others who are affected by that individual's behavior. And there is no evidence that a stated belief or unbelief in spirituality is automatically associated with beneficial or harmful behavior. On the other hand, there is some evidence that having an accurate understanding of ourselves and each other can indeed be beneficial to us all. And there is evidence, I believe, that our sharing and comparing of our ideas, including our religious ideas, can indeed lead to self-improvement and the progress of our species toward a better life.

Our religions, of course, have characteristically dealt with issues related to spirituality, but their concerns have gone beyond such issues, namely, ethics in general, that is, what we should and should not do. Religions have been hindered, however, by the lack of understanding that spirituality, including Subjective Model beliefs about "God," do not have to be in conflict with the findings of science. It has been the belief that the religions can come up with Objective Model beliefs, about "Reality," that are as good as or better than those of science, that has held the religions back from performing their appropriate role.

If "existential beliefs" means beliefs about how Reality is, was, and will be, and "ethical beliefs" means beliefs about what we should and should not do, then we can see science as the appropriate social activity to optimize our existential beliefs and religion as the appropriate social activity to optimize our ethical beliefs. And we certainly can see both as necessary, because one without the other would be dangerous. But also, both bad science and bad religion are in themselves dangerous.