The Age of Reason

Recently I've been acting like a total fanboy. It started in a
bookstore the other day, I picked up a book on Da Vinci and was
browsing through it. The man has always fascinated me, and the ideal
of the Renaissance Man is one I aspire to, though in my own mind I
think of it as the samildanach for I tend to see the two as one and
the same.

Reading it, I took note once again of how far ahead of his time (or
even ours) Da Vinci must have been to do what he did, with the
materials and knowledge available to him. I think with awe on what
the man might accomplish with the information and materials available
to him in the modern world. And I do my best to understand how he
thought, how he approached problems and learning. So for the past
several days I have again immersed myself in reading his notebooks,
though they are as disjointed as my own and with less context.

Now, though, I'm spreading out a bit. Some of the other great figures
who represent the age of reason, whose works have been collected under
that heading on sacred-texts.com, are intriguing me as well. Have you
ever read Einstein's article "religion and science"? It's quite
amazing, and the distinction he draws between primitive religions of
fear and what he terms "moral religion" is quite pertinent to the
modern institution of religion. As is his conception of a third
distinction, the "cosmic religious feeling" which he declares the
hallmark of true religious geniuses among the heretics of every creed.

I think I'm going to have to read the rest of his writings, now. I
had no idea he was so articulate in areas other than physics. And
after him, either Darwin or Spinoza. Perhaps the greeks who inspired
the age of reason, after that. I think reading the works of these men
will help sharpen my mind. But more important, if I really want to
take these men as my ideal, I need to study more under the three
greatest teachers they had; that is, Nature and Experience and Reason.

I think I might get back into rock collecting...