Talking to God outside organized religion may be Better

Human society is all about language if you break it down to the smallest component. All our relationships, all the ideas we come across that shape our lives & reality, the way we see and experience the world. All those things are built upon our communication, so it's truly the glue that holds human society together.

So what does that have to do with talking to God?

Some of the most memorable words from the Christian bible are "The word was God." For a long time, I didn't understand what this meant. How could a word be God, right? However thinking deeper about this and connecting all of it with the communication-as-a-foundation-of-society view I described, "The word was God" makes a whole lot more sense.

Think about this, you become the average of the five people you spend the most time with. It's a well-known saying in psychology and self-improvement circles and it's something we practice in our everyday life all the time even when we don't notice it. If you spend time with five unproductive stoners you're likely becoming the sixth one. On the other end, if you spend a lot of your free time around five business owners and leaders of industries, you're likely going to become the sixth soon enough too.

This happens almost automatically as our environment shapes us and we do things with and in unison with the people around us. However, it goes deeper when thinking about all the words exchanged between the two groups. The more accomplished group will feed off each other and reinforce each other in the direction the group is already leaning toward, while the other group will do the same in its respective direction as well.

With that point cleared, I believe that even people who aren't believers in God or any specific deity must admit something about the human mind. If a conversation can change our perspective and brain chemistry to make us live differently, does it matter who that conversation is with? Most people would say it doesn't, truth is truth no matter who or where it comes from.

Now let's say you're having a conversation with the most accomplished and morally upright person that you know, maybe someone you read about or someone you met and admire a lot. Just imagining that conversation will change and transform you in some minor way, just asking yourself "What would X do?" will bring you closer to being like that person.

Now let's take it a step further and make the person you imagine be not just the most accomplished and morally upright person you know, but actually your vision of what a perfect person or being is. The more time spent talking to this perfect being the closer to that perceived perfection one gets. Now here's the tricky thing, until it's tested it is still only "perceived perfection" informed by our human point of view and we should be careful with it. It's going to be different for everyone of course but this is already halfway there.

Once you see in your mind that perfect being and you begin seeking advice in the same way, "What would X do or want me to do here," the same mental transformation will start happening and pulling you toward that mental ideal. You become the average of the five people you spend the most time with and if one of those people is to you perfect, morally, and in every other way imaginable, that's guaranteed to pull you closer to those ideals.

While this is all good and applicable, however, the truth is that everyone's ideal being is different and is going to have different morals so how could that be God? I'm glad you asked. The answer to that question is why I believe religion as a tool was first developed, let me explain.

Maybe I'm wrong but in my view, God could be an unchanging being, spirit, and force which is set. However we people change, all the time, and we discover sections or parts of God's bigger truths, and sometimes we conflate those segments of God's truths and ideals with our human truths and ideals and solutions, muddying the waters between the two. A good framework is to think of religions as tools or instruments to attempt to reach God, meaning that they are separate from God, and can point us to some of God's truths, but they should never be seen as infallible structures, as we all continue to learn from history.

Ideally, universal truths should be seen as originating with God, maybe God is those truths, what do I know right? Unchanging truths are the same in every era, they might even be considered the only real things that truly exist. However, the human ideals that change with time, are often misunderstood for God's truth when they are really just human ideals for the times and societies of those humans. Those could just be what they received and understood from their version of a "morally infallible imaginary friend or mentor," as many would call it, but if they haven't stood the test of time then that proves those were just human ideals of the era.

This tells me that religions, though they can help people grow in the right directions, they may not be the most efficient way to reach and grow closer to God for everyone. Knowledge of the world is.

Ever-growing knowledge of the world from as many areas and corners of the human experience as possible, when passed through the filter of those conversations with our individual vision of the perfect being, is what ends up shaping that vision made of human ideals into what is closer to the real God ideals and truths that stay unchanging throughout time and space.

This is effectively a way to discover God's truths through experiencing and learning of the world and then talking with our current understanding of perfect morality. As this process repeats, that vision of perfect morality may sometimes be wrong or appear to be, which lets us find out the hidden human ideals we mistakenly believed were true God ideals. If certain insights consistently lead to moral growth, psychological integration, or human flourishing across cultures and periods, this validates those truths as more than just human ideals.

Think of the process behind discovering mathematics, physics, or psychology. No one invented those fields, they just exist as truths of the world and human minds eventually discovered them and began studying them from a closer look with each generation and technological breakthrough. Implementing the discoveries in human societies where they fit for everyone's benefit. 

Repeated over a lifetime this process unearths chunks after chunks of universal truths and by interacting with this evergrowing vision of God we also become better people by exposition. As the original blurry vision turns into a clearer developed image of the perfect morality, we grow as people too by interacting with it.

While this can be hard to wrap our heads around, for all of this to truly sink in we need to acknowledge some things now.

We need to acknowledge that thinking about something complex already makes us more ready for it, pro-athletes use visualization all the time to get in the right zone.

We need to acknowledge that what we think about has a real impact on the physical world starting with our own bodies and behavior, think of something sexy and your body will start getting ready by itself, blood flows to the genitals, awareness rises, and pheromones release.

And finally, we need to acknowledge that we grow closer to what we think about the most, and conversations are both the seeds and the water of our future thoughts and actions.

So, a conversation with a morally infallible friend, whether you believe that friend to just be an evolving fragment of your imagination or a blurry and developing view of the eternal creator of the universe, is still going to bring out outstanding results from deep within you. The only two bottlenecks to spiritual growth through this approach seem so far to be how fast one learns of the world, and how much belief one has in this adventurous method of spiritual growth.

For the already religious, that belief naturally comes from faith in an all-powerful God and that's honestly enough belief to keep going with the process until the changes it creates are undeniable in your life. For the non-believers or anyone who read through this article but doesn't see the value in engaging with a moral ideal, the substitute for faith can simply be the placebo effect. They are basically the same things when you think about it, but in the absence of religious faith, the concept of the placebo effect can resonate better with some because of its extensive scientific backing, such as studies showing people recovering from ailments purely because of the belief in a treatment. 

The placebo effect is for instance and purpose just the scientific name for religious faith if you ask me as the two concepts function the same way. So whether you're more comfortable with the word faith, or the placebo effect, the point is that having that mental backing and belief that something is happening is the key to making any of it work. Conviction always has to be the force powering forward our decisions because what would be the point of doing anything, if we didn't believe it would lead to something better? Maybe that says something deeper about ourselves, the nature of truth, and the power of faith in a process. 

Or that God's voice, even just a little bit, is indeed inside all of us no matter what and is constantly working on improving us. I can see people making both cases.