Let´s call it a hunch

 

- You sure that´s God?
- Just continue meditating, bruh!

What is the most compelling argument for God? Or, rather, what is the most persuasive fact of reality which points to the Divine? When I started my "spiritual quest" over 20 years ago, I would have said the moral argument and the hard problem of consciousness. Of course, back then I had a more "theist" view of the Divine and was Christianity-curious.

Today, I would say first and foremost that the case for the Divine is cumulative. It´s like assembling pieces of evidence and connecting the dots. How do I know whodunit? Let´s call it a hunch! I would say that the hard problem of consciousness is *the* major hunch that materialism simply can´t be true. First, materialist scientists still haven´t been able to solve it (and not for want of trying). Second, it simply can´t be solved. 

Even if somebody conclusively demonstrates a causal connection between atoms and consciousness, I would *still* suspect there is something more to it. Obviously, since I have immidiate first-hand knowledge of my own mind and its subjectivity. I perceive and know that my consciousness simply cannot be reduced to whatever material stuff scientists claim caused it (or is identical with it). The hunch won´t go away and the quest would continue.

The above doesn´t necessarily prove theism, deism or dualism. Pantheism and panentheism are other possibilities. But the point is that we are "plugged it" to something that isn´t brute matter in the sense usually understood by that term. Come to think of it, isn´t the materialist claim that matter can generate consciousness in itself a kind of pantheism, animism or even animatism? The pantheism that dare not speak its name...

Everything else feels like commentary to this. Very interesting commentary, to be sure!