Faith vs Reason
God versus reason

Out main pages (available from the menu on the right of this page) consider the quite amazing insights of the mystics and poets. The acceptance that there is a consistent "Ring of Truth" inherent to very many of these quotations has led us to prepare this page as a contribution to the faith vs reason debate.

The AWESOMELY profound Insights from Mysticism and Spirituality that are available on several of our pages are drawn from Christian, Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, and Taoist sources and focus deeply on several spiritual truths. Consider the following examples:-

A Disdain for Materialism: Chuang Tzu put on cotton clothes with patches in them, and arranging his girdle and tying on his shoes,
( to keep them from falling off)
went to see the prince of Wei.
"How miserable you look, Sir!" Cried the prince. "It is poverty, not misery", replied Chuang Tzu. "A man who has TAO cannot be miserable. Ragged clothes and old boots make poverty, not misery".

Chuang Tzu - (Taoism)
A Distrust of Intellect: Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment; Cleverness is mere opinion, bewilderment intuition.

Rumi - (Islam)
A Yearning for Divine Edification: It is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for them that love him. But God has revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.
...the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

St. Paul - (Christianity)
Charity: He that does everything for Me, whose supreme object I am, who worships Me, being free from attachment and without hatred to any creature, this man, Arjuna!, comes to Me.

Bhagavad Gita - (Hinduism)
Purity of Heart: The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day. The way of the wicked is as darkness: they know not at what they stumble.

Solomon - (Judaism)
Humility: Would you become a pilgrim on the road of love? The first condition is that you make yourself humble as dust and ashes.

Ansari of Heart - (Islam)
Meekness: Let a man overcome anger by love, let him overcome evil by good; let him overcome the greedy by liberality, the liar by truth! Speak the truth, do not yield to anger; give, if thou art asked for little; by these three steps thou wilt go near the gods.

Dhammapada - (Buddhism)
Communion with God!!!: There are quotations from several World Religions that suggest it is possible for people grow spiritually towards a Mystical Union with God!!!

These are examples of mystical faith but we cannot deny that there were two people named Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace who did much to "intellectually" discredit religious belief.

Late in his life Charles Darwin was approached by a publisher who encouraged the preparation of an Autobiographal work detailing Darwin's life and outlook.

Darwin fell in with this project and indeed seems to have taken it seriously as a record of interest for his own family:-

A German editor having written to me to ask for an account of the development of my mind and character with some sketch of my autobiography, I have thought that the attempt would amuse me, and might possibly interest my children or their children. I know that it would have interested me greatly to have read even so short and dull a sketch of the mind of my grandfather written by himself, and what he thought and did and how he worked. I have attempted to write the following account of myself, as if I were a dead man in another world looking back at my own life. Nor I have I found that difficult, for life is nearly over with me. I have taken no pains about my style of writing.

Charles Darwin's Autobiography, published in 1876, actually contains an extensive sub-section specifically entitled "Religious Beliefs" which contains the following quotation:-

At present the most usual argument for the existence of an intelligent God is drawn from deep inward conviction and feelings which are experienced by most persons. But it cannot be doubted that Hindoos, Mahomedans and others might argue in the same manner and with equal force in favour of the existence of one God, or of many Gods, or as with the Buddhists of no God...
....This argument would be a valid one, if all men of all races had the same inward conviction of the existence of one God; but we know this is very far from being the case. Therefore I cannot see that such inward convictions and feelings are of any weight as evidence of what really exists....

It happens that in our own times sympathetic translations of texts drawn from several World Religions are widely available. Many persons have come to see that there is a "Perennial Philosophy" of agreement that lies at the heart of several World Faiths. The term "Perennial Philosophy" is attributed to Leibniz and was used by Aldous Huxley (who was himself actually a grandson of "Darwin's Bulldog" Thomas Henry Huxley) as the title of his own celebrated work that quite deeply explores the Mysticism common to several world religions.

Human nature, Human behaviour and Human Existence in general are all very complex matters. That being said the Poets would have it that people have a certain "Drive to Reason" as well as a "Thirst for Faith."

Some quotations will illustrate this:-

A Drive to Reason

Civilisation is hooped together, brought
Under a rule, under the semblance of peace
By manifold illusion, but Man's life is thought,
And he, despite his terror, cannot cease,
Ravening through century after century
Ravening, raging and uprooting, that he may come
Into the desolation of reality.

W. B. Yeats

A Thirst for Faith

Live while you live, the epicure would say,
And seize the pleasures of the present day;
Live while you live the sacred preacher cries,
And give to God each moment as it flies.
Lord, in my views let both united be;
I live to pleasure when I live to thee.

Philip Dodderidge

Thou hast created us for Thyself, and our heart is not quiet until it rests in Thee.

St. Augustine

We at age-of-the-sage.org consider the way in which the awesome insights of the Poets, and the Mystics, have been overlooked in Humanity's search for understanding to be nothing short of a downright scandal.

The main pages of the age-of-the-sage.org Web site are very much about the truly awesome insights of the Poets and Mystics.

The majority of these pages detail and explore the more Spiritual insights that have been won by those adept in Poetry or in Mysticism across the globe and across the ages. Some of our pages, however, continue into the realms of Metaphysics and show how Poets and Mystics have actually won KEY insights into Existence in general.

The following images are examples of the more Metaphysical insights that have been won into Human Existence:-

The above views of Human Nature / the Tripartite Soul suggest that people are essentially the same yet differences exist in terms of ethnocultural and confessional heritages.

We cannot deny that despite suggestions of a deep similarity in human nature across the Millenia and across the Globe there have been, for good and for ill, some notable "extreme?" personalities.

Several of our pages are full of awesomely profound quotations drawn from the Mysticism that is to be found at the very heart of the World Religions. We expect that those who read them with an open mind will be obliged to accept that people are indeed Spiritual and that that Spirituality allows people to become Enlightened as they make "Spiritual Progress" towards some mysterious Absolute Spirituality that has an independent existence.

We hope that, even if you are interested in human nature from a "purely scientific" standpoint, you will take the trouble to access our Metaphysical Insights pages and possibly also our Poetic Insights and Spiritual Insights pages.

If you do we hope that you will be impressed by the profundity of the insights into Human Nature, into Spirituality, and into Existence, that have been attained by the Poets and Mystics.

We cannot "Explain" these insights but nonetheless feel that people should be aware of them.

World Wide Humanity has a very long history of sincere involvement with religious practice! This history of involvement has, in ways, been called into question by Evolutionism. Not only the more longstanding physical Evolutionism that is associated with Charles Darwin but also by the more recent behavioural evolutionism as represented by the increasingly prominent science of Evolutionary Psychology.

To set against these Evolutionisms we have the deeply impact-FULL and inherently persuasive Enlightenments, Wisdoms, and Insights of the Poets and Mystics which even extend into proferring Metaphysical Insights into the Existence of God, of Man, and of Society.

We may ultimately prove to be God's creat-ures or we may ultimately prove to be Space and Eternity's evolut-ures but which? or in what proportions? has yet to be established!!!

Introductory quotations

"Central" mysticism insights

"Other" spiritual wisdom

"Central" poetry insights

"Other" poetry wisdom

Spirituality & the wider world