The Enlightenment, The Age of Reason, is perhaps the greatest thing to happen to the human race, ever. We have moved from superstition to science, from magic to the real. Well, guess what? We owe all of that to the Early Christian thinkers, with a little help from the Hebrews, Greeks and Arabs.
Christian thinkers, working from their Jewish roots and from the works of Greek philosophy, declared Jesus 'the Logos.' This literally translates as 'the Word,' but it carries a more subtle meaning. It means that the Word is Logical, rational. The Universe, they deduced is governed by the Creator's rational laws and, as such, is understandable, to a large extent by man. This was a huge moment in human history.
Come the Middle Ages, monks got their hands on the old Greek texts, thought lost. They did this because the Arab scholars had saved them. The Arab scholars shared the belief in God's rationality and devoted much time to the study of the Natural world.
The monks began to do the same. We think of the Middle ages as the Dark ages and nothing could be less true. Great strides were made in architecture and that requires deep math skills and a basic knowledge of physics. Medicine advanced. The body was not understood vey well, but a fine working understanding of herbal cures developed. An understanding of the Earth's make up, the rocks and soils developed as did plant and animal husbandry. The alchemists did not spend all their time seeking the Philosopher's Stone; they had a practical knowledge of basic chemistry.
For sure, the knowledge of that age was basic, but at least a stat was made, and from that start came the Renaissance, and from that, came the Enlightenment.
Without the Age of Reason, we would be sitting in dark hovels, eating scraps of plants and suffering a constant series of debilitating illnesses. No electricity, no cars, no books. I read some blogs, here and there who seem to want a return to the old, pre-Enlightenment days, the old magical paganism. Not me.
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