Guenon quote

The following quote is from the English translation of René Guénon's most important book "La Crise du Monde Moderne,"(1927) although he may have lost faith in this position in his later life.

"...We think that if a Western tradition could be rebuilt it would be bound to take on a religious form in the strictest sense of this word, and that this form could only be Christian; for on the one hand the other possible forms have been too long foreign to the Western mentality, and on the other it is only in Christianity - and we can say still more definitely in Catholicism - that such remnants of a traditional spirit as still exist in the West are to be found. Every 'traditionalist' venture that ignores this fact is without foundation and therefore inevitably doomed to failure; it is self-evident that one can build only upon something that has a real existence, and that where there is lack of continuity, any reconstruction must be artificial and cannot endure."

Religion and Science...Science Is Great But...

If “truth” remains a central goal, could we see the tracks of science and religion converge? Would this hybrid contain more of religion, and less of science, or the other way around?

Perhaps the real model is this: science following religion in all its forms and gradually "proving" the ethical truths of religion using scientific methods, e.g. traditional conservative values affirmed by sociobiology. And this would continue as science “proves” many more of the truths of religion.

If this is the case, then scientists, and others, who claim that religion is backward may see that religion has been far ahead of science, and this would define religion as superior to science in knowing the truth. But perhaps “superior-inferior” is a less accurate description than, say, the analogy of object and mechanic: religion is the model, which science attempts to examine in detail.

Science Is Great But...

Science Is Great But we
has been late to use it as a tool,
yet we would be fools to make
our rules conform to stillborn
equations from a germ free lab,
Sad and violent history attests
to the best plans of man overrun
by nonmathematical forces.

Traditional Flow

Youth attends the rose, age the soil,
and in this roiling strain the world
goes on. Are new songs truer
than the old? Is boldness
more valuable than golden age?
Even the sages disagree,
and we are often left between
the cleft of rock and sea. Ideas
weave their way into the mix
and try to fix everything
with tidy simplification,
while the ones who know go
with the traditional flow.