The Test for Religion

Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa in his On Learned Ignorance and Cotton Mather in his Biblia Americana each in their own way exemplify how religion can cohere and promote scientific progress. There exists a gulf between that type of Christian humanism and let us say the so called low church.

The same is true for virtually all religion. Take the Baghdad caliphate of Harun al-Rashid for instance. The development of transmission of the works of Plato, in particular his republic, as the basis of leadership by an imam parallels Cotton Mather's axiomatic approach to governance that inspired Benjamin Franklin: to do the good.

A great mission for society is necessary to uplift its vision beyond the here and now. That mission is in our stars so to speak. The ugliness of pessimism that has been virtually worshiped by so called intellectual elites in the western world for the course of the last two centuries must be overcome. There is no other path forward. People of good will are everywhere the same. That orientation is the basis for an end to the evil of geopolitics.

The future holds such a kernel for hope. Let it's universal anthem be Beethoven and Schiller's Ode to Joy.