As I was reading Exploring Religion by Roger Schmidt I realized that the experiences people had with the Holy was more of a poetic occurrence than a definite encounter. They were very subjective in nature and subject to interpretations.
Very much similar to my experience with God. I interpreted the experiences as Godly. Like when I met the lone biker who had helped me on the solitary Texas back road when my light fuse blew up in the middle of nowhere. These experiences were then got distorted by our perception of what is real. In another example I interpreted the psychosis episodes I experienced during my mania as me battling Iblis. In reality I was experiencing dopamine surge due to extreme stress and the use of intoxicants.
In this case, is there such a thing as the God Experience? I had come to believe that we are nothing more than a combination of chemical actions and reactions. Given the situation presented to two individuals, one a believer and the other a nonbeliever, the meaning defers. This is different than if both persons encounter something physical like a cat for example. Although the mind still delete, distort or generalized, depending on the vividness of the experience both persons cannot mistaken the cat for a lion respectively.
A person's experiencing the Holy might defer. A lightning or a thunder might be mistaken as the presence of the Holy. So are coincidences and paternicities. Our minds are quick to assign meanings to events that are not related. This is the nature of human survival. In the wild a rustle in the bush can be interpreted as the gust of wind. If it is true then the person has nothing to worry. If he makes a error in his judgment and that turns out to be a predator, he just eliminates himself from the gene pool. Always we give meaning. Not necessarily the meaning is true.
This God Experience becomes more difficult because God is elusive. Even when he is present, his manifestation is localized to the a specific individual and not the masses. That narrows down the possibility that the person might be delusional or under the influence of strong substance like alcohol or hallucinatory drugs.
That leaves the possibility that God is perhaps the creation of human imagination. As I was reading though the anecdotes given in the book, I cannot pin down these experiences as an absolute conclusion. It will be easier if there is an occurrence where God appears in front of the masses and just to rule out the possibility of mass psychosis, the experience is recorded based on the consistency of each person's experience.
I had been open minded ever since I read the book. I even emptied my cup as recommended by the author at the beginning of the book. However I cannot help to wonder if the God Experiences that these people went through as much as I did were merely the mind trying to force feed something that [that] is not there.
I still have a long way to go before I finish reading the book. It is good that upfront the author made a disclaimer that the book is not about uncovering the truth but rather about finding what is useful. In another word, what Roger Schmidt is saying is the God Experience is not something logical but more emotional in nature.
In my personal experience, it is more chemical than physical. We were thought to trust our judgment. However when comes to feelings, often times our minds might deceive us into believing something that is not there. This is true when we are exposed to a state of extreme glad, mad, sad o[f] (or) scared.
I wish I can be a nonbeliever and totally rely on my five senses to follow where the argument leads. In most cases, when comes to something as abstract as the God Experience, I tend to rely on my past beliefs on what is true. These beliefs were colored by myths, parables, folklore, religions and my own childhood preconceptions.
I don't want to jump into conclusion but I am now inclined towards not believing that there is God. The God that I experience now is no other than the God I created in my own image. Thus I become my own God.
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