Published in Zygon journal September 2008

How can Mankind answer the “Big Questions”? 
 
Mankind has always  been wondering about the big questions such as who are we? What are we doing on  this earth? Is there an afterlife? What happens to us after  death?
 
This debate rages on without an answer which would satisfy majority of
people. This question has  never before been faced squarely and answered honestly through objective search  and discussion using recognized modern investigative  methodologies.
 
The author contends  that such big questions simply cannot be answered by the bottoms up approach of modern science despite its dazzling successes in all areas of material  sciences. The fundamental limitations of the scientific approach are  increasingly showing up in modern discoveries.
There are definite intellectual  limitations. If we cannot be hopeful even of understanding our material universe how can we ever expect to understand the potential creator of this universe, who per force will have to be more complex than the universe itself,  as correctly maintained by the atheist how than do we approach to answer this crucial question of the existence or otherwise of the creator.
 
It is the contention of this author that such a basic question cannot in principal be answered through our limited intellectual means. For finding such an answer we have to look for some signs or signals or information from the creator himself which would be the only way, in principal of approaching this subject. Our effort should thus be concentrated on finding such as sign or message in a manner similar to the SETI experiment for looking for extra terrestrial intelligence.
 
It goes without  saying that such signs, signals, message from the creator must be absolutely unique and posses matchless properties to be able to convince even sceptics that  it is not product of any human ingenuity but is indeed an authentic message from the creator.
 
We have learnt  through science to develop tests for all kinds of diverse objects such as gold, diamonds, gravity or neutrinos. 
 
Why can we not  devise rigorous tests or criteria for such message from the divine called  revelation? Just such an effort has been made by this author who requests other searchers and keener minds, of different faiths or for that matter  no  faith, to go through the proposal with a view to refining , adding and improving  the proposed evaluation criteria.