Where we speak of god as an anthropomorphic representation of natural law, and physical law, he is a pedagogical device. Where we speak of gods as anthropomorphic representations of the virtues we aspire to, they are pedagogical devices. Both provide us with analogies to experience that we require for learning, while informing our moral intuitions how other humans will determine our actions. It is the most effective form of learning morality by imitation. Our myths of princes and princesses teach us how we may act if we wish to be treated as princes and princesses. Natural law and physical law remain the only truths, and these narratives pedagogical devices for the purpose of education, communication, and representation in our arts. They form the binding myth in human terms, that let us perceive membership in a tribe so large that we cannot empathize with it, and learn from it, without the use of these myths. Hyperbole, Exaggeration, and Heroism, illustrate and inform us. The timelessness of these heroes teach us the importance of continuity – of what we consider the eternal consequences of our actions. Of what we westerners possess in our metaphysical value judgement: that man can become gods if we transform the universe to our will. So the purpose of each of us, if we wish to be godlike, is leave life having transformed the world for the better: to one by one, life by life, construct an eden for man from a hostile universe that is as uncaring of us as the dirt under our feet, until there is nothing left to change, and we have in practice become the gods we seek.
This is the philosophy of western man. Of we who would not suffer gods, but struggle to become them ourselves. Man by man, woman by woman, generation by generation.
And we may drag the rest of mankind with us into godhood, or leave them as the mere animals that they are if they pose no hindrance. Or exterminate them if they are a hindrance, so that man can become as eternal as the universe – and the master of it.