Can’t win them all. Though I still think what the inner pipeline connects with is pretty great and is probably what has given rise to all other conceptions of God. No doubt all those narratives add culturally functional advantages that my conception of the sacred would not. But perhaps someday we won’t need those advantages anymore, you know, now that we have such stable democracies and all …
Objective evidence should be considered and not ignored or merely denied, however.
I’ve looked at the neuroscience as a lay person of course. I’ve looked at myths from around the world and thought a good deal about what gives rise to God belief. But admittedly eye witness firsthand accounts, not so much.
I wish there was a compendium of them – firsthand reports of objective evidence of God’s providential interventions into the lives of his children (especially linked sets with meaning infused because of the individual involved in the otherwise disparate events, similar to those referenced above).
George Müller’s autobiography by itself is a pretty impressive record of God’s providence, probably unmatched and unmatchable! Even @Klax said something about him being ‘incarnational’, or words to that effect. I remember reading somewhere that he would not leave his morning devotions until he was happy in/with/about God, although I forget the exact preposition (obviously 
). I love that face (would that it were yours, smiling for the same reason as his!)! –
Just do it. Speak aloud with understanding you’re talking to all of creation. You’re not alone as creation surrounds you. Speak to creation. Don’t hesitate to ask questions of creation.
Rationally, you might see this action as a type of psychological maneuver, akin to the self-programming of meditation. You plant the seed in your mind and then, during sleep your unconscious nourishes the seed until it sprouts. This procedure is good for garnering Eureka! moments.
I’m not over-bearing, so give me an atheist directive, as I’ve given you a theist directive, and I’ll (probably) do it.
The point is you & creation having an active relationship wherein you do things to each other as the relationship grows.
Blast the boundaries of your imagination with faith in the creation giving you sound directives toward the enrichment of your life.
I like to speculate that Tony Robbins would approve of my message.
Glad to hear it 
I’m a Christian, but am trying to get the gist. I don’t see how talking to a stone or the cosmos is a proof for theism?
Have you read Randal Rauser, “Is the Atheist My Neighbor”? You might enjoy it.
Thanks.
Randy
You make it sound as if humans & Christians belong to separate categories.
I think the difference between the two, upon inspection of innate identity, vanishes to a theoretical point.
I agree with all your points on this list.
Fact is, all humans face forces far beyond the human scale of causation. That interpersonal relationship to the creation (frequently called religion) should be basic curriculum in formal education is controversial. As we’re all seeing these days, religious beliefs quickly convert to political beliefs.
The violence of partisanship drives many away from active relationship with forces beyond the human bubble. Although it’s true force-feeding religion to youth puts many of them in the express lane to anger, rebellion & alienation, it’s also true that such disaffected persons, when caught in the grip of forces beyond the human bubble, experience puzzlement, frustration & misery.
We’re not alone. We’re immersed in a creative reality that goes beyond human. Not facing this truth at all is a bad choice because innate human spirit suffers starvation.
Staying within the human bubble means deifying human, a terrible mistake that leads to disappointment & heartbreak.
No, but Christians are a subset of humans.
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Sounds like New Age to me.
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And that sounds to me like a poison well fallacy.
Something is not wrong just because it sound like something you heard from New Age.
Ok… I know… You did not actually say that. But I wanted to nix that possible implication.
Besides… New Age draws its ideas from many many sources including Christianity. So obviously a lot of things are going to sound like something you heard from New Age.
… made me look up and do some reading about the whole new age movement. Some of the sources are pretty respectable like Carl Jung. I don’t about Blavatsky and Swedenborg, however… just not to my taste, perhaps.
New Age sounds next to nothing like Christianity. It sounds more like panentheism.
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Yeah it is a mixture of a lot of things. Swedenborg’s spiritualism, paganism and Wicca, a dash of Hinduism, a few ideas borrowed from the spectrum of Christianity (not its essence to be sure), definitely a lot of Taoism, beliefs in ghosts and psychics, astrology and numerology, healing with crystals and other alternative medicines, oh and a bit of Native American religion too I think. Definitely a wide spectrum. Sum it up as a hippie version of religion, frankly.
But like I said, just because it sounds like something you heard in New Age doesn’t mean it is wrong. They have their share of truisms and nonsense like most religions.
This is not the orthodox definition. If you look it up, it is more a belief in the supernatural, not the natural. Can you explain? Thanks
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Is God immanent in nature, or transcendent and wholly apart from God’s creation?
Can we feel God’s immanence within the natural world, surrounding human like sunshine?
Moses on Mt. Sinai, dialoguing with a dense cloud, receiving the tablets. Does anyone call Moses pagan?
I have experienced no miracles beyond the natural world. I don’t doubt witness accounts claiming supernatural intervention, but my dwelling is here, within the everyday society of common events.
Curiously, when I feel most inspired by creator, I’m urged to do things embarrassing to genteel society, like speaking aloud to the spirit without the sanction of our pop culture (witnessing outside of a church building).
God riles the common people. Talking to the creation is adventure. Attempting to act according to spirit arouses disdain. Wherever I go, I arouse laughter.
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I never laugh at pain. Most here would not, either.
I will private message you.
I think it’s safe to say that Moses was talking to God in the dense cloud - not just talking to a cloud itself, anymore than Moses would talk to a rock or a mountain … or a bush! God can choose any of these things to carry a revelation in some special way, such as using the burning bush. But again, Moses isn’t addressing a bush. He’s speaking with God using that bush for the moment.
I do happen to believe that God is found everywhere and is immanent in everything and everyone, as well as transcendent above all as well. But that is different that identifying any one person or object as being God. Apart from Christ (the only one I would single out as being God to us), I would never talk to inanimate objects (except absentmindedly - as in talking to myself) much less think of them as being God.
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Did you perchance follow the link referenced above regarding objective evidence for God’s providential interventions into the lives of his children? They are not supernatural in the sense that any natural laws were broken, but the wonderful timing and placing certainly point to God’s sovereign authority over time and place.