To find wisdom you need both Faith and Reason.
Asia followed (and hopefully still follows) Faith and Reason together.
We in Europe were isolated.
The Persian Empire brought the wisdom of ancient Egypt and Israel to the whole of Asia. Europe never got that advantage.
The most educated Romans left western Europe for the Roman East, which still thrived, when the Roman Empire fell in the west.
Europe was isolated. The only land in the Old World which could not easily reach India and China. Even Japan can sail to Africa, Persia and Egypt, let alone India.
And so, isolated, we did not have the advantage that Asia had.
And so we, in Europe, became ignorant.
And we became- and still are- so ignorant that when we made contact with the great Asian civilizations- Persia, Egypt, Ethiopia, China, India, Japan- that were (and much of which is still) much more advanced that we were -and are- that we actually thought that we were more advanced then they were.
And we were so ignorant here in the west that we actually saw the very thing that made them more advanced than us and made us so ignorant- and we thought that that very thing made us advanced and them ignorant, and not the other way round.
Old Asia followed Faith and Reason. Together. Hand in hand.
All the old Asian sages followed Faith and Reason together. Plato. The Buddha. Mahavira. Muhammed. The Greek church fathers. Confucius. Lao-tzu.
All followed Faith and Reason together.
And you need both to find true wisdom. Reason to guide you. Faith so that you don't just dismiss everything and end up believing in nothing, or nothing but materialism, which is really just believing in nothing.
Europe decided long ago that you have to choose between following Faith and following Reason.
And we came to Cairo, in Egypt, to India, to Ethiopia, to China, in the case of the Dutch to Japan, and we saw that they followed both Faith and Reason together.
While most of us had rejected Faith for Reason.
Not though every religious masterpiece of Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Titian is a living symbol of following the Faith of Christ together with the Reason of the Greeks- but we did not believe the great Renaissance masters.
And, instead of seeing that they were so much more advanced than us in the heart of Asia, we decided that we were more advanced and they were more ignorant.
Decided that Europe's scientists were more advanced and Muhammed, Lao-tzu and The Buddha were ignorant.
Because they followed Faith together with Reason.
We were not the more advanced ones.
They were.
The Love of God is not superstition.
The serenity of Buddhism and Taoism is not superstition.
We need to learn to follow Faith and Reason Together.
We can learn from them.
For many of them in Egypt, in Turkey, in India, in China, in South Korea, in Japan, still follow the traditional wisdom. Ever since The Beatles went to India, there has been a revival of the old wisdom. Teaching Confucius to the young has become popular again in China.
And many in the West have discovered the wisdom of Krishna, of The Buddha, of Lao-tzu and Taoism, of Rumi and Sufism.
It's time we embraced following Faith together with Reason.
For we need both. And the people of India, Japan, and many places in Asia today can lead the way.
Sincerely,
David S. Annderson