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When properly understood our beliefs provide the basis for the most important question we can ask, What is the meaning of human life? Our beliefs are the most accessible element involved in producing our behavior and our feelings. They empower and direct our motivations that guide our lives. We have been delayed in our progress toward the light at the end of the tunnel because our beliefs about the meaning of human life have been taken to lie in the realm of the supernatural, and therefore outside the realm of science.

My own contention is that the answer to the question of the meaning of human life lies within the realm of the natural world. Any confusion that has existed on this issue resulted because the question has not been properly formulated.

Since the very beginning of symbolic language with the advent of Modern Humans there has been a struggle to ask the “right” questions; i.e., questions that can be answered or that lead to questions that can be answered. Realizing when an answer has merit and clarifies rather than confuses has eluded most individuals and most societies. A goal of Science of Ethics is to provide a framework to help individuals ask better questions.

The issue of belief has always been at the core of this process though usually this has not been recognized. The key issue in the foregoing has always been human nature which has until recently been interpreted to lie within the realm of the supernatural since a naturalistic explanation for human existence and human living seemed impossible.

At some time nearly every phenomenon we now see as natural has been interpreted as existing in the realm of the supernatural: the sun and stars, lightening, death, disease, pestilence, epilepsy, etc. So the progress of humanity has been the process of moving one phenomenon after another from the realm of the supernatural into the natural realm.

From the perspective of Science of Ethics only one issue remains to be death with: What is the meaning of human life? Once we learn how to ask this question so that the answer lies in the natural domain then our long struggle for understanding will finally have been achieved. We will have gone from a time in which all “answers” were in the realm of the supernatural to a time when no answers are within that realm.

This chapter looks at the psychology and physiology of belief. Section A of this chapter looks into Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy which provides a useful tool for helping us to interpret and utilize the concept of belief in extremely valuable ways. It gives us the answer that brings good mental health into dealing with the problem of the meaning of human life. Section B examines “The Biology of Belief.” This looks into the physiology of belief since bringing psychology and physiology together is essential.

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