Quote:
Originally Posted by FellaGaga-52
"Revelation" -- a surprising and previously unknown fact, especially for one that is made known in a dramatic way.
Of course religion has their own supercharged definition for the word, restricting it to coming from a supernatural, authoritative, authoritarian, omniscient, infallible god. But Einstein is obviously not in that camp from the context of the speech and many other comments.
This shouldn't be a semantics game. He makes clear in the first paragraph of the address that an exclusive focus on knowledge (thinking) is one-sided and then goes on to stress the importance balancing that with belief (feeling). He's not talking about facts but about things that are sensed.
Other definitions from the Oxford Dictionary:
the act of making people aware of something that has been secret
sign or message from God (Spinozan)
The highlighted parts spell it out rather plainly:
And if one asks whence derives the authority of such fundamental ends, since they
cannot be stated and justified merely by reason, one can only answer: they exist in a healthy society as powerful traditions, which act upon the conduct and aspirations and judgments of the individuals; they are there, that is,
as something living, without its being necessary to find justification for their existence. They come into being not through demonstration but through revelation, through the medium of powerful personalities. One must not attempt to justify them, but rather to
sense their nature simply and clearly..."