You know what Mystic, I actually agree with almost all of what you said here. Except for the automatic assumption that god actually does exist. Here's what your hypothesis looks like without the constant undercurrent of that assumption.
Quote:It seems to me that we humans have an instinct that thinks that it automatically knows the divine but doesn't quite know it. The more we grow, the more we are capable of justifying that supposed knowledge of the Divine.
Our early "knowledge" of God, or belief in God, is there, without much reflection. We don't really think about how we know God or whether we truly do, we simply accept it. But as children along with "knowledge" was a lot of "blind trust" in what our parents taught.
As we grow older, most of us question what our parents taught us, and try to investigate to find the truth. But we do this with a bias. Many people however objectively find that their religion and what their parents taught, was without basis.
Many of what their parents taught was without basis. They then conclude that their belief in God was simply out of trust of parents or society or bias or wishful thinking.
What I feel they failed to do is to investigate the knowledge regarding their "origin" "source" and "foundational basis", which as far as we know, is that instinct itself. It maybe a part of their conditioning to believe in a god as an abstraction of a parent figure (someone who brought you into existence, runs your life, takes care of you, dictates how to behave, reinforces good behavior while punishing the undesirable).
At any rate, part of the reason, is that they find intellectually, is to simply rely upon cold logic + scientific method. This is a lot with due to how the intellectuals of our time are presenting the matter.
Also with society now become more inclined to "fleshly desires" and the media idolizing from "the animal desire" perspective, the spiritual exalted "Moses" of the Soul is belittled, while the "Pharaoh" of the Soul is exalted, people feel ashamed of any spirituality, and belittle it, and hence we have many people disbelieving in God. This is especially true since society is becoming more and more reason oriented and we have found absolutely no reason to give any consideration or regard to the "spiritual" side. In fact, we have found no reason to believe that such a side even exists.
People feel "shy" from claiming an arbitrary connection to god and claiming spiritual knowledge, because it feels anti-intellectual as well as society structure is belittling the "Moses" and heightening the "Pharaoh" of the Soul. The fact is, since they know that it is in fact anti-intellectual (on account of not having any justification except a "feeling") and thus their shyness and shame in the matter is what is actually justified.
Another thing is that religion has presented a concept of God that truly isn't worthy of Worship while at the same time emphasizing on the attributes of the God that is Worthy of Worship. People then feel disconnected to God all together when they disconnect from their religion and realize that it described a God unworthy of worship.
The various factors, make a person feel inclined to ignore their supposed connection to God.
So, basically, what we see is that while we may have a childish and immature instinct to believe in a god, with the correct confluence of social interaction and a rigorous practice of rationality and critical thinking, we can come to see that beyond that instinct, there is no other reason for us to give the idea of god's existence any particular weight. Even the instinct itself can be explained by a childish worldview of wish-fulfillment. Any consideration given to that "strong" connection to god is based only on the instinct, which cannot be justified in any rational manner. Therefore, the basis of any connection between humanity and god is hollow and pointless.
