Mantus

In the posts above have shown that direct knowledge of god from the source of the divine being itself has never occurred on this planet. I also displayed that knowledge of god though interpretation cannot result in the truth about god.

I now realized that there is a third way to obtaining the knowledge of god that so many people use to justify their beliefs. The third way of obtaining knowledge of god is that of affirmation. Many people say that the have a feeling of corectness about the scripture they believe in. As if god is telling them that they are on the right path.

This is actually another side of the “feeling of god” confirmation to god’s existence that people like to use. The difference is that in this case the knowledge is obtained first which is then confirmed by the “feeling”. So the same argument that was used to disprove the “feeling followed by knowledge” case can be used.

If this “feeling” is to be taken as a direct sign from god that one’s beliefs are in fact valid, then why is there such a colorful variety of different beliefs though out the world? Some of them are even contradicting of one another. If god personally came and put a stamp of approval on just one belief, then obviously we would only have one belief in the world. Surely if there was only one true religion then all other religions would die out because their worshipers would not have that same “feeling” of truthfulness that god gives the worshipers of the true religion. Yet we don’t, people all over the world follow different religions. Even within the popular religions there is differences of opinion and practice. So this “feeling” could not have originated from god.

The feeling of justification that people get about their beliefs has some rather obvious sources.

The first source is social. Humans enjoy the company of others and enjoy acceptance for we are a pack animal. There fore just as our instincts enjoy and accept the idea of eternal life, our instincts also encourage us to gravitate towards social groups for there is strength in numbers and a higher opportunity to finding a mate. Therefore the more people belong to a certain religion, the more it appeals to humanity.

The second (and in my opinion) more important source of a human’s contempt with religion is its philosophical, social and moral values. These values are not unique to any one religion. Our moral and social values have existed long before organized religion. The reason that religions differ so much is because each one chooses to focus on just a small portion of the moral, social and philosophical dilemma. Each religion has a certain selective set of standards that, if attained would in turn solve all the other human dilemmas. Or so the author[s] believes. The very thing that makes them so appealing at first (their attempt to simplify humanity) is also their eventual downfall for their practitioners begin to see the holes in their scriptures.

With that I believe that I have successfully refuted both sides of the “feeling” and “knowledge of god from god” arguments that people use as proof of their understanding of god[s] and to justify their religions.

Cheers