This article was a response to Robert Ritchie’s Regime Change in Heaven blog on The Guardian’s Comment is Free found here.
Ardent materialists, firm believers in the applicability of the scientific method to all questions, abound on CiF.

The Hidden God

by Bill Ingle

The God imagined in previous ages, an earthly potentate writ large, is entirely suitable for humorous depiction.

Such depictions don’t necessarily improve the odds that skeptical and ego-bound Westerners, convinced of the infallibility of the scientific method, will gain any clues as to the nature of what could be termed the “hidden god,” however.

This latter being is no thunderbolt thrower, judges no one, and has no interest whatsoever in ruling those on earth; the imaginary god is, to a large extent, a great and mythical distortion of this being.

Temporarily casting aside the ego is one way to fathom this being but this is much easier said than done — the techniques for doing so aren’t at all difficult, but what’s lacking in the rational mythos is any motivation for doing so. (Elsewhere, simple and basic curiosity is sufficient.)

Once this is accomplished and periodically practiced, the hidden god is revealed as no big deal, really, simply a very basic (but largely forgotten) essential and foundational feature of existence.

There is no repeatable scientific experiment that can reveal this hidden god, so there is no point in searching the databases of peer-reviewed journals for it, but anyone — even those who are not scientists — can explore its nature. (No expensive education is required, either; just the learning of some variation of the above basic techniques.)

One way to picture the situation might employ the idea of overlapping and fully conscious minds.

This is greatly simplified but, basically, you have the overall mind of All (the hidden god), within which are found souls, entities, essences (different words for the same beings); our conscious minds (and selves) are expressions of these last beings, “larger” and more expansive versions of our usual day-to-day selves.

(There is no need to confuse this picture with any religious tenets or theologies, even though connections can be made.)

We tend to view all of existence from the perspective of a single self, separate from all else and delineated by its skin, rarely conscious of anything beyond the contents of our conscious mind and that which our physical senses reveal.

Our science (and, earlier, our religions) reflects this extremely prejudiced perspective.

A greater (and “real-time”) vision, not at all based on this “separation,” is obtainable by quieting the conscious mind and stilling the physical senses.

This is really so very simple, yet even such a basic explication frequently meets with great resistance and skepticism from those completely unwilling to even try such simple methods.

Why is there such reluctance to discover what lies beneath waking consciousness?

What is there to fear in exploring what is presently called the subconscious and the (allegedly) unconscious (for this can be said to be the “location” of the hidden god)?

Possibly, beneath the shallow surface of many waking minds, lie great fears left over from olden times, fears of thunderbolt throwing gods, demons, and what-not, these fears covered up with rational beliefs.

Possibly, too, it’s much easier to pretend that the surface explanations of the nature of reality offered by modern science are nearly complete and 100% legitimate; anyone with such beliefs may believe there is no need to question them.

In that regard, they aren’t that different from religious believers.

http://www.realitytest.com/doors.htm