Science, Intellect, and Reason as False gods?

"And when he saw the creation which surrounded him and the multi­tude of the angels surrounding him who had came into being from him, he said to them, 'I am a jealous God and no other god exists be­side me.' But his proclamation indicated to the angels who dwell with him that another God does exist. For if there were not another who exists, of whom would he be jealous?" - The Secret Revelation of John

In this text, the god of Genesis is not a benevolent spirit, but in fact an ignorant, spiritually blind, and even malevolent being.  This being who haplessly created our world is known as the demi-urge (which means artisan); what we might commonly know as the devil.

This is, at least at first, a shocking idea, and even one that seems incredibly sacriligious and heretical.  However both Genesis and the Gnostic creation myth establish the "devil" as the ruler of this world, so the ins and outs of the significance of this particular myth are, in my mind at least, largely theological hair-splitting.

Though there are several layers to the idea of a malevolent creator, what I find most useful is the ability to identify the "demi-urge" or false gods. What is a demi-urge?  In this world, everything that is treated as a god but isn't is a demi-urge.   In the text the demi-urge actually believes he is a god, but is blind to the knowledge that there is a real God above him.

I believe there is real importance to this (although I freely admit to others it may just be more hair-splitting).  For instance, we often are told to avoid "false idols" i.e. things like sex, drugs, money, power, fame, etc.  However, it is easy to recognize hedonism as a spiritual dead-end because it don't even begin to masquerade as a god.  They simply are what they are: a good time for the moment, usually with harsh consequences to be suffered somewhere down the road. 

The demi-urge that is harder to recognize may be within our own minds.  Our false psychological projects of what we think god is/should be and what He isn't.  As the Gospel of Philip states: "God created man. [...] men create God. That is the way it is in the world - men make gods and worship their creation. It would be fitting for the gods to worship men!"

And then there are the things we actually look to as gods: intellect, science, and reason.  These appear to me to be the real demi-urge of modern man.  As a long-time student, it seems easy to recognize these things, who masquerade as a real God, within the academic world.

As a child I was led to believe education was the answer to all of man's greatest problems, such as poverty and crime.  However it was the educated elites who sent our financial institutions into collapse in 2008.  Where was our education and our intellect to save us then?  Education has not protected us from crime or poverty; education in these instances only serves to create even more poverty, and to make fools more dangerous. 

In one of my classes a professor told us that people used to "turn to religion because they did not have science to explain the world to them."  However, as far as I am concerned, to treat science as a god is nothing but another spiritual dead-end.   Does science give us a reason for our existence?  Does it give us an identity or purpose?  Absolutely not.  Can science explain what our only our intuition can understand? Can it explain transcendent beauty, or the reasons that a picture or song produce strong emotions within us?  Again no.

Many of my college-text books, even for instance, the sociology text-book that says it has the answers for why we have religions to begin with, automatically assume there is no God and no spiritual world.  I pointed out to my professor in the academic world atheism is considered more intelligent than any sort of faith.  She didn't argue.

So I suppose it is in these things that I recognize the demi-urge.  These dead-ends that actually believe they have all the answers, but in fact do not.

“We should not pretend to understand the world only by the intellect; we apprehend it just as much by feeling. Therefore, the judgment of the intellect is, at best, only the half of truth, and must, if it be honest, also come to an understanding of its inadequacy.”- Carl Jung