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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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.

sree251 · 41-45, M

@sree251 Thought and imagination are derived from the memory, the capacity to retain experiences. This enables the cognitive ability to perceive things and understand them in terms of what is known.

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?