The Response to Emotive Knowledge

Often when discussing religion we hear something along the lines of “God speaks to me” or “I can just feel Gods presence”, upon first hearing this as a teenager I couldn’t really think of an appropriate response that wasn’t insulting; all I could come up with was either suggesting the person I was talking to was either hallucinating, delusional or lying, and, whilst in some cases this may be accurate I doubt it is true of all cases. So what is the source of this phenomena and how can you rebut it in a conversation?

It is my belief that the sensation of “feeling" God is in fact a variation upon the "James-Lange Theory of Emotion”. The James-Lange theory essentially states that the body responds to sensory stimuli (seeing a beautiful woman, smelling a gas leak, feeling pain, etc) and the brain then interprets the physiological changes dependent upon the initial stimuli (love/arousal, fear, surprise). This makes a lot of sense when you think about the fact that our internal responses associated with most extreme emotions are the same: increased heart rate, perspiration, etc. yet the range of responses to this same physical state can vary wildly. Could it be that upon seeing scenes of beauty and wonder that the physical response experienced and the accompanying sense of awe is interpreted by the religious mind as being influenced/touched by the supernatural? It may be worth asking the religious, when do you feel God most, what are you doing at the time you get this sensation, it would be interesting to see if the occurrences of this sensation correlate with other sensory inputs.

What about hearing God speaking to you or guiding you? The only rational explanation I can garner is that this could be the individuals misinterpreting their own internal thoughts and dialog as supernatural guidance, which when you consider most people who claim to be “directed” by the voice of God (e.g. George Bush Jnr) it is interesting that most of the time this guidance seems to agree with that persons preexisting choices and beliefs.

The brain is an amazing organ, our understanding of it is still so limited yet one thing we do know is that it can be easily deceived, especially if we wish to be deceived. This tied in with what seems to be mans ability (almost necessity) for exaggeration would suggest to me that any supposed voices heard or presences felt can quite easily be explained away as a simple trick of the mind. 

Although the above may be quite interesting, and possibly valid it will probably be treated as insulting or preposterous by a lot of theists so the ability to use this line of thinking in a debate is severely hampered. In light of this how can we discuss the matter of “personal experience”? In my opinion the best way is to simply point out that these experiences are not isolated to one single religion but (nearly) all; we are then left with the dilemma that not everyone can be telling the truth and therefore as rational beings it would be illogical to believe one group whilst dismissing all the others. Religious beliefs do not explain how people of multiple faiths could experience similar things yet rationality and psychology do.