God must exist, because I hear and feel the comforting divine whisper giving me guidance.
If someone proposes that God does not exist, how do they explain the feeling that each of us is guided by something greater than ourselves? Surely that feeling must be something, right?
Doesn’t that comforting whisper come from an external spiritual conscious being called God?
You’ve experienced that overwhelming feeling of God’s presence haven’t you?
Such as, when you go through an enormously difficult time. I don’t mean the everyday challenges. I mean, when you go through that visceral struggle where despair and depression are your only friend in that moment, when you can’t eat, you feel sick, your heart is in knots, your pillow is soaked with tears, and you feel so defeated and weak with no solution to figure out how you’ll make it through the next minute, hour, or day.
And then, suddenly, you experience this overwhelming warm numbness of peace and calming. The brain chatter becomes silent. Light becomes brighter, and vivid color starts to appear again. You don’t know why or how, but somehow you know that you have the strength to carry on and it’s going to be OK, even though it’s still difficult.
This is probably where the saying – “There are no atheists in foxholes” comes from too (along with the last chance to secure a trip to Heaven).
When a soldier is on the battlefield experiencing bombs and bullets from enemy fire getting closer and closer, and she knows she may not make it out of her foxhole alive, and suddenly all the chaos around her becomes silent, and she experiences what feels like a divine protection amidst all the hell surrounding her.
That must be God, right?
Or, how about when you take that quiet walk in nature, and you feel God’s presence.
Let’s explore what this may actually be.
They say God is a timeless spirit that came before you.
Something else that came before “you” is your subconscious mind. It came before your conscious mind.
In other words, your body and subconscious mind existed in the womb, and as an infant, before the prefrontal cortex version of “you” (your personal identity) came to be.
So your subconscious and your body existed before the conscious identity of “you”, and your conscious identity grew from your subconscious and your body. That’s why we don’t consciously remember the very young years of our lives.
They say the knowledge that God possesses is far beyond our comprehension. We humans also have knowledge and wisdom far beyond our conscious mind. It is contained within the subconscious.
The human subconscious has a processing power thousands of times greater than the conscious mind. It may be much more powerful because it retains the adaptations from thousands of previous generations of DNA that have evolved in Sapiens.
The subconscious mind is very broad, yet soft and quiet, just like how the moonlight can softly illuminate the whole landscape of an area, while the conscious mind and the evolutionary newer limbic system is a bit more like shining a flashlight in a dark forest. It can only focus on specific things at a given time.
The comforting whisper of loving wisdom that we get from God, especially during challenging times in life is also identical to the comforting whisper of loving wisdom that originates from our subconscious. The guidance from God is like that illumination of soft moonlight.
Is it possible that what some perceive as the voice of an external God may not be from an external deity, but actually originates from deep within your mind?
I know that can be difficult for a Christian who is emotionally attached to the idea of hearing the voice of God, but ask yourself, do you want to live your life believing that which may not be true just because it’s comforting, or do you want to live your life being truthful and honest with yourself and with others?
A strong emotional belief in something doesn’t add to the truth value of that belief.
Anyone who has studied the mind will know that the comforting wisdom and guidance that comes from the subconscious is quite parallel with the comforting guidance that is felt when we pray to God for direction.
Perhaps what is perceived as an external omniscient consciousness, is actually the internal compass of the subconscious that has knowledge and wisdom far greater than the conscious mind, and that has adaptations from previous generations of our gene pool that acts as a guide to make decisions that favor our vitality.
The strength, guidance, and wisdom originates from within you. Tune in to it. Embrace it.
Thank you for finishing part 3 of this 8 part series.
I hope you join me next time where we explore the different places God has existed history.
