While watching "The Question of God" one night on PBS, I sat perplexed.

The program, moderated by Dr. Armand Nicholi, a psychiatrist and Harvard professor, had a theoretical debate between Sigmund Freud, the atheist, and C.S. Lewis, the believer, on the existence of God. Afterward was a panel of educated believers, agnostics and atheists.

My confusion? They never got past the issue of whether God exists but discussed whether order can exist in the universe without a higher intelligence, whether God is a product of the need to believe in something greater, and how there can be a God when there is so much evil in the world.

As I see it, the issue should have been whether consciousness survives physical death. If God exists but consciousness does not go on, what difference does it make if there is a God? Knowing if God exists doesn't in itself help us understand the purpose of our lives or give real meaning to them.

"Believers," including a Buddhist journalist and a Jungian analyst, talked about a "sense of connection" to the divine and an intuitive feeling that there is something greater, to which someone expressed my thoughts, "Where does that get you?"

Perhaps the viewer was supposed to assume that a belief in God meant a belief in survival of consciousness and purpose to life.

When the afterlife was alluded to on a couple of occasions, even the "believers" weren't prepared to discuss the subject. No believers offered any concept of the afterlife beyond what is espoused by orthodox religions.

Nicholi has used the Freud vs. Lewis debate in all of his Harvard classes for more than 30 years. I am not qualified to argue with such an esteemed educator, but it does seem to me that he and others are missing the boat in approaching the question of God and immortality of the soul deductively, i.e., finding God before we accept the survival of consciousness.

Since God apparently is beyond human comprehension, so many people stop there and are left with nothing more than orthodoxy's humdrum heaven and horrific hell, a scenario that does not invite rational people to believe.

Unable to get a handle on God, those taking the deductive approach require a large leap of faith, something more and more people are reluctant to do in this scientific and materialistic age.

The inductive approach, that of psychical research, makes much more sense. That is, explore and examine the evidence for survival of consciousness in such things as near-death experiences, out-of-body travel, deathbed visions, spirit communication through various types of mediums, past-life regressions, etc., then, assuming we are satisfied with the evidence, look for an intelligence behind it. In the light of evidence for survival, the "question of God" really becomes academic.

Perhaps that is the problem: Academia often has a hard time dealing with the practical.

Lewis seems to have based his belief in God simply on emotion, including a "longing to believe." As I understand it, he rejected spirit communication and other psychical research as so much humbug. He would certainly not be my choice as an advocate or defender for a belief in the spiritual.

As I see it, the Freud approach involves a fatal leap into a darkened chasm, while the Lewis approach requires a giant leap of faith over that chasm.

Kailua resident Mike Tymn is vice president of the Academy of Spirituality and Paranormal Studies.