Former Pastor Joseph: "It was all in my mind. God doesn't talk to people."

After 40 years as an insider, what I saw was:

1) a legion of believers fervently praying to "know the will of God" only to end up making their own decision that they "sensed" God was "leading them" to make. The reality: It's all in their mind. God doesn't talk to people.

2) Ditto to everything above but from another angle. Since God was not saying anything to them, they sought the counsel of the "aged saints" to instruct them on what to do. The reality: It's all in their mind. God doesn't talk to people.

3) A common complaint that I heard over four decades was "God seems so far away." To which the "great saints" would retort "This is a normal occurrence in the life of a believer. This is why its faith." The reality: It's all in their mind. God doesn't talk to people.

4) No two believers agreed on all matters ethically and doctrinally. There are roughly 1000 commands in the Bible. No two believers observe and ignore the same ones. The reality: It's all in their mind. God doesn't talk to people.

5) believers would hold dearly to the invented tenant that the Bible is "how God talks to us now." Why? Because of reality. It's all in their minds. God doesn't talk to people.

Without exaggeration, I have spent hundreds of hours in prayer during my lifetime. It truly was one directional. Any feedback internally was nothing more than imagined and conditioned amygdalan responses.

I'll never forget the awakening moment I had walking as a pastor in a forest preserve in the burbs of Chicago. It was at that time that I realized there was no one of the other side of my prayers. It was all in my mind. God doesn't talk to people.

In a 2009 study done by Nicholas Epley from the University of Chicago we now know it's all in the mind of the believer. "God" (the English name of the Christian god) doesn't talk to people. Believers simply create their own religion, their own Gospel, and their own God in their own image. This has been shown TO BE A FACT. The study, as reported by Discovery magazine, needs to be shared more widely than it has BEEN so far. It proves that it's all in the mind of the believer. God doesn't talk to people. Why? Because its been shown he agrees with every single believer on a host of different unrelated issues. Given that God cannot agree with everyone then God doesn't talk to anyone. To continue maintaining God talks to any given believer, or any select group of believers, is utter madness, a delusion, given the number of people God agrees with in the world.