I wanted to follow on PSacs ideas from a while back regarding the unknowable god.
If god is not detectable by virtue of his nature but can choose to modify / cloak / inhabit matter in such a way that he or his effects are detectable ( for example visions or walking on water ) then we can only suggest that people do not know about him because he chooses to remain undetectable. I do not have any truck with the illogical idea that we ( mere 100kg bags of animated star dust ) must look high and low for an unknowable being before he will decide the point at which he becomes perceivable, no that is rank stupidity, like expecting ants to have an appropriate attitude to us before we help them; the onus is completely on the father / teacher / master / creator / revealer figure to initiate the contact in an unmistakeable way.
Many people claim to have this revelation. They claim that the unknowable god has made himself knowable. The problem is that their subjective experiences with the divine are so different and utterly contradictory to everyone else's experiences and reveal so little regarding the real world ( its almost always useless info on how heaven works, how someone should worship or how a human chemical emotion such as love is an attribute of supernatural forces) that it is indistinguishable from and of as much use as a fairytale or a dream. The way to understanding claim those with the subjective experience is to put aside critical thinking and , as a child, believe and have faith while waiting for the arbitrary nature of the unknowable god to reach some tipping point and for revelations to occur.
The moment that information begins to flow between the unknowable and the material then often no further explanation is required / sought as to the source of this information, it must be the unknowable god! That the information is neither useful ( what does one do with a vision of a god on a throne?) or distinguishable from artistic imagination ( I saw a valley dry bones speaking ) and contains no information not already available to the subject experiencing the revelation ( no revelation ever reveals new laws of physics, new mathematical proofs, cures for illnesses etc.) is telling.
We have several well defined and well studied paths for how perception works and how it is a 'play' presented to our conscious mind normally after the subconscious decision has been reached and how that play can be altered to meet expectations ( we see things that aren't there, we continue to see illusions even when we have enough facts to explain them, we imagine the speed of events changing and so forth - examples on demand!) We know that a mendacious person can construct fantastical stories, authors can write fully realised worlds, mentally ill or abnormal brains can construct alternate untrue perceptions, emotion , lack of information , lack of processing time or actual brain wiring ( learnt mental filters) can produce imaginary experiences as the brain struggles to keep the 'play' going at all costs. This brain ability , perception constructed on the fly from imprecise inputs filled in with previous experience and expectation, is undoubtedly responsible for dreams, waking imagination and revelations ( unless we wish to ascribe all revelations, no matter how contradictory,how unique, how culturally apt , how immoral or fanciful as of equal weight and as manifestations by the unknowable god). In the light of this common human trait ( I'm switching to a more personal mode to avoid pricking egos) a believer such as I once was must explain:
Why is my supernatural experience (SE) more likely to be actually supernatural than simply brain induced?
Why does my SE reveal emotionally satisfying information but nothing else?
Why do I get a specific SE but other people get contradictory ones or non at all?
Why do I think myself immune to perception failures even if I can perceive myself having one (I.e. I can experience an illusion despite understanding it)?
Why do I share my SE when the only route to this knowledge is actually for someone else to have a subjective SE?
Why do I presume to understand the process to achieve my SE will work on another person when in fact I am perceiving a will driven being who provides SE according to his will rather than my process?
Why does my SE allow me to monopolise and redefine words I neither created nor own( like 'love', 'truth' or 'God') such that others can no longer use them unless they accept my ownership of the definition?
Why does my SE allow me to moralise that which is immoral ( killing, rape, slavery, child sacrifice, war, genocide, guilt, blackmail and so on.)?
Why am I unable to accept that others may have had an SE that generated similar behaviour patterns to mine but on investigation found it to be caused by something else and see how that is relevant to me?
P.s. to keep the thread on topic and to fulfill stereotypes - AG got away with it again!