How Does One Know God?

12Jan07

According to just about every monotheistic religion there is, God is too great for humans to comprehend. God transcends hard reality in a way we can only hope to do if we follow His word, and for Him nothing is impossible. Humans can’t even begin to imagine how great God is. In fact, some argue that for humans to even have the idea of God, there must be a God, for surely nobody could come up with the idea of perfection unless it was planted there by a perfect being? Skipping over such ridiculous beliefs, how does one know God?

Why, just look to scripture. But immediately a number of questions arise. Which book is the true word of God? This would seem to be different depending on where and how the believer was raised. But surely God doesn’t manifest Himself in so vastly different versions that they directly contradict each other? That would almost suggest that God is somehow imperfect, but that would topple the whole world view of most monotheistic religions, so clearly such thoughts are heresy.

But more importantly, the God depicted in various ancient, holy books doesn’t seem to match up with the image people have of God. In fact, God seems to be a violent bastard. Both the internal image of God that most believers have, and the external image we get served through various media differ substantially from what the actual scripture says about God. A quick look at the Skeptic’s Annotated Bible should enlighten even the most vocal proponents of the all-loving almighty God. In modern society, some things are just not socially acceptable. Some of these taboos are pretty stupid, such as the disgust many people feel any time someone criticizes religion, but some of these taboos are there because people realized that these practices were just plain wrong. But still, they’re in the Bible or the Quran or other such books of God. Clearly, God cannot truly want people to stone their children if they don’t obey them in every way.

The solution? Interpretation. If you don’t like something in your Holy Book^tm, the right thing is clearly to interpret it. This practice is surprisingly common; in fact, most people who self-identify as Christians don’t support stoning children to death if they disobey their parents. But at the same time, they believe the Bible to be God’s word. They aren’t God’s literal words, though. The writers of the Bible were only under inspiration of God, He didn’t literally dictate every word to them. But in the starting paragraph of this blog post, I established that God is too great for human comprehension. Then, could it be that the writers actually misunderstood God? But if one opens that possibility, how can anyone really be sure that the Bible or the Quran is the word of God, if there are passages in the respective books that must be interpreted for the true meaning to be revealed? It would seem that most theists are unsure what the real word of God really is. They all agree that He is too great for humans to understand, though.

The same goes when the word of God directly contradicts observations we have done on earth. For example, those who read the Bible literally have concluded that evolution contradicts God’s doctrine, and therefore it is false (they conveniently forget that for God, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like a day). Clearly, evolution is right; it is one of the best supported scientific theories we have. The solution is, once again, interpretation. The two tales of creation in the Bible, for instance, are both just metaphors.

Now, I’m not the first one to point out that this is the height of arrogance. First, you assert that God is too great for man to understand, and then you assert that your personal understanding of God differs from God’s word, but it is correct. Either the Bible or the Quran or some other book is the word of God, or it isn’t. If only some of it is holy, and the rest is the word of God as filtered through the minds of humans clearly not capable of understanding it, but we don’t know what passages are genuine, the whole library of scripture is useless.

So, if we can’t trust the Bible or some other Holy Book^tm to be the true and full word of God, how does one gain insight into God? Galileo called mathematics the language of God, through which we could understand His creation. Others have a personal relationship with God. One commenter on this blog wrote:

I have conversations with him [Jesus] every day, all day long.

Normally, having imaginary conversations is seen as a sign of schizophrenia or some other mental disorder. But, if we’re talking about religion, clearly anything is normal. Some people take it a bit further. They assert that everyone has Jesus in their heart (or soul), they’re just living in denial. That pisses me off. You do not know anything about me except what I’ve chosen to reveal on this blog and other places on the web. If I hadn’t already called interpreting God’s word the height of arrogance, asserting that you know what’s in the “soul” of a stranger over the internet would certainly be it.

Clearly, believers feel that there’s a way to connect with God. So, let’s leave it an open question for theists and atheists (if they’ll suspend their disbelief for a discussion’s sake) alike: assuming there is a God, how do we communicate with Him? How do we know that what we perceive as signs of God isn’t really a trick the neurons in our brain is playing us? And how do others know?

Filed under: atheism, philosophy, religion, theism   |  Closed