What can we know about God(s)?

"how could we know ... whether there is a God?"

What a great place to start.

Knowledge is at the beginning of all studies and epistemology is the beginning of knowing.

Now, in the scientific realm, one -must- have the repeatable, observable phenomena. Without it there's no testing for validation, and without that, no science. So then, how can one assess the validity of a non-repeatable, non-observable phenomena? One can't.


But, that doesn't stop people from doing just that. The observations are made by themselves. How?

They use their senses to experience the world. Sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell - these are the means by which we connect our brains to the outside world. And, these can be faulty.

Now, don't get me wrong, I depend on my senses all the time. I make lots and lots of choices based on what I see, hear, touch, etc. But to make true sense of them, I have to have a framework within which they function. This is what anthropologists call a 'cognitive map'. Made up of a recognition of objects nearby (of which I am one), the spatial relationships they have to each other, and then the normative meanings, not only of those things in different combinations, but because I'm human, the social settings as well. Through this 'cognitive map' I make sense of the world I'm sensing.

Why am I off on this seeming tangent? Well, I'm getting back to how we can explain knowledge of God(s).

People's personal experiences tend to weigh heavily in the interpretive power of their 'cognitive map'. And usually, people like to have these built around explanations; cause and effect that is subject to future manipulation or at least just explanation of why things occur in the manner they do.

It is into this model and understanding that I'd like to put God(s).

If you look to the disputes between religions/faiths and science, you'll find that people can be utterly convinced that what they believe is true, even in the face of repeated, observable evidence to the contrary. This is because, to them, their experiences, interpreted through their senses and 'cognitive map', make a better explanation of the events that transpire for them than the repeatable phenomena.

This is important because, with the lack of repeatable phenomena, one has to ask not about the origins of God(s), but rather human discovery of them. If they can break the laws of time and space, then they only ways they can be experienced is going to be at the level of the personal. However, even someone who 'hears' the explanations of someone else's understandings is likely to integrate that possible cause and effect relationship into their own 'cognitive map' and thus, to interpret certain situations along those lines when the phenomena occurs.

In science, this is the realm of teaching. Gravity, as we understand it, is based on the attraction that two objects have on each other, as a function of their individual masses and distances. I could go out an observe this, but, overall, I take it to be a good explanation of the cause and effect of what happens to objects when I let go of them in midair. I am taking the testimony of someone else and using it to frame my world.

I might just as well latch onto the understanding that the reason things fall is because of invisible floor demons. They're invisible, so obviously they can't be seen, and they're greedy. They jump up in the air to grab things (except those filled with the lighter gases like H and He which they just detest and push away), and if the thing they grab is small enough, they scurry away with it (which is why sometimes you can't find the thing you dropped).

How would I know about invisible floor demons? Well, I'm likely to have to rely on the word of a specialist, since I can't see invisible things and have no demon-detector. I'll be taking someone else's testimony and using it to explain the phenomena.

Since I know about the floor demons, why do I really use the gravity explanation? Well, for me it's a better explanation (more exact and predictable) and I've never experienced an invisible floor demon personally.

Is it an easy step from invisible floor demons to God(s)? Absolutely, if gravity is taken out of the picture. Without a repeatable, observable phenomena that someone has tested, one answer that seems to fit the phenomena is as good as another that also seems to fit.

If God(s) must be discovered by humans so that they can be known, we can argue that such a knowledge is likely to be 'viral' in nature. For instance, I experience God(s) while very hungry and tired. As I discover more about the role God(s) play(s) in the workings of the world, the more I'm likely to tell people what I know, especially if my view is cohesive. Through my act of telling people about my/God(s) system, I'm priming them to 'see' the same relationships in the occurrences of the world around them. Thus giving them the experiential knowledge and adding personal validity to the system which they are likely to pass on to others.

When I talk about this in my classes, I use the terms first-hand belief and second-hand belief. First-hand belief is experiential; you have the proof because you've lived it - it happened to you. Second-hand belief is hearsay; you have no proof, but you have an understanding, based on the testimony of others.

One has to realize then, that people with first-hand belief know, and those with second-hand belief have something perhaps less convincing. Without the experience of God(s), it's harder to know they exist.

But your knowledge need not be proof for others. Moreover, what is a proving experience for one person need not be interpreted as such for another, even when they share the same system in their 'cognitive map', as everyone's cognitive map is, of course, constructed from their own experiences and all the past systems of interpretation they've used to make sense of things.


So ... why all my rambling?

Well, from my perspective, only you can know about your conception of God(s). For this subject it has to be personal, since only you use your own senses and only you use your particular 'cognitive map'.


Be well with what you know.