The quest of the good life.

Recent advances in the physical sciences have greatly stimulated religious thinkers in their search for a science of religion; and almost everyday we come across a new definition of it. But as yet we do not seem to have found the definition that will persuade us to become more religious. Maybe this is too much to ask; but it may well be asked why it is that scientific "explanations" of religious experience so often persuade people to give up "being religious". (An essay towards a philosophy of religion. F E Brown)

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Shadyglow · F

Social psychology takes up this topic and sociology in general too

Psychiatry (at least the ETHICAL scholars) discuss this stuff as well. For instance in schizophrenia there is often an overwhelming focus on religion, actually more like religious delusions.

Because religion itself is SUPPOSED to address the whole subject of life itself and with SZ all that comes into SERIOUS question... am I really alive, who killed me although I'm still walking around...was it GOD finally coming through or the devil....??

etc etc etc

Does GOD LOVE ME, or was I being lied to about that too. If you ever met a person like that you do absolutely understand.

And in my opinion this stuff is the last true freedom anyone has. No one can persuade ANYONE to do anything "religious." It can't be forced. Once they burned witches to persuade everyone.

And there's lots of social science around that stuff in general.

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Shadyglow · F

@sree251 Its a healing thing to know sometimes someone really understands. Thank you. Means more than you know.

sree251 · 41-45, M

@Shadyglow

Its a healing thing to know sometimes someone really understands. Thank you. Means more than you know.

Believe me, I know. You are not alone. Alone in the sense of being cut off on your own to live and die alone.

One time, I was in crowded mall filled with people. A child was in tears looking frantically around for its mother amidst a sea of faces. It was lost among humanity! And so it is for all, each adrift and alone in a hostile reality.

sree251 · 41-45, M

@Shadyglow

ummm... actually this is messed up because I left out a word, ie: (there isn't any true consensus if its based on true understanding...;) when I MEANT to say "there isn't any true consensus if its NOT based on true understanding...")

True understanding. This is not possible except at the basic level; and by that, I mean at the visceral level of "dumb" animals. We have moved from that level to the conceptual where we see thru ideas of an intellectualized world.

I keep my life simple: basic bodily needs, and no emotional attachments. Can you do that?

sree251 · 41-45, M

What do we mean by God? How do we define it? The necessity of thought and the use of imagination restrict expression of something new that has never been experienced before.

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sree251 · 41-45, M

@sree251 Is it possible to experience the unknown, the unknowable? It is possible to experience something new. For example, seeing the Earth from space for the first time, setting foot on the moon, and seeing Earth from the moon. In all those instances, the new experiences are related to and extrapolated from the previous experience from moment to moment as knowledge increases from being on terra firma as Galileo to being on the moon as Neil Armstrong. There is no clean break in consciousness. Consider Galileo waking up from sleep to finding himself in a spacesuit walking on the moon. Could he comprehend where he is and what he is perceiving? There is no way for his mind, with its limited knowledge, to process the new experience of the unknown.

I posit that God is the unknown, the unknowable.

sree251 · 41-45, M

@sree251 The word "God" has been used for naming a supernatural being, the creator of of all that exist including the human being as defined by science. This is the Gordian knot, a problem insoluble in its own terms. The quest of the good life necessitates the untying of this knot.

sree251 · 41-45, M

@sree251 Science is the systematic study of things through observation. Thus the scientific observer, thru observation, has discovered itself to be a human being, a creature it studies systematically through the lenses of physics, biology, chemistry, and psychology.

How did science prove that the observer is a human being? What experiment was conducted to test the truth of this discovery?

sree251 · 41-45, M

Subjectivism is the doctrine that knowledge is merely subjective and that there is no external or objective truth. This notion implies that the human consciousness is all-encompassing. My consciousness is yours, as well as, ours including that of all sentient life forms.

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