Religion and science need a deep tune up

In an essay on Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in Chronicles, Lee Congdon quotes Solzhenitsyn saying that a political system should not be measured by its military power or the size of its economy, but by the sum of the spiritual progress of individuals under its authority. Deeper than politics and economics is religion and the spiritual. Solzhenitsyn made it clear that his concerns were fundamentally religious and moral—the state structure was of secondary significance. I agree in general, but religion and science need a deep tuneup.

It has been said that politics is down stream from culture, and culture is down stream from religion. But religion has been slowly dying since the the 17th and 18th century Enlightenment, and it's demise has been speeding up since then. Science has not filled the gap although for many in the West it has tried to take the place of religion. Both religion and science need a tune up where they can take things from each other.

I would say the Enlightenment was 50 percent right in affirming science, and traditional religion was 50 percent right in affirming religion, but the Enlightenment was 50 percent wrong in smearing religion, and religion was 50 percent wrong in smearing science.

It is true that attempts were made to synthesizes these things. The Enlightenment affirmed Deism with God defined as nature, and religion tried bringing more rationalism into religion, but they really didn't like each other much, and that dislike grew worse as science advanced and religion faded.

Theological materialism retains religion and Godhood but religion and Godhood are reformed by evolutionizing religion, philosophy and politics, which is different from the Teilhard de Chardin project to evolutionize religion while retaining an entirely non-material, spiritual, trinitarian God.

We don't look to experience merely the symbolic God Within the human brain or heart, as traditional religion has done---although this is retained in the Inward Path---the Twofold Path seeks to save religion not destroy religion.

A rebirth of religion is needed. Perhaps the theological materialism of the projected Theoevolutionary Church will help bring science, art, philosophy and religion back together. The material world and mankind will materially evolve on earth and in the cosmos to ascending levels of real Godhood, the Godhood first seen only virtually, as a mirror, in the inward paths of the great religions.