>There's some interesting ideas here. The suggestion that the Enlightenment may have erased several millenia of human wisdom is interesting
As a counterpoint, you could argue that the Church (and the general chaos after the fall of Rome) did the erasure and the Enlightenment was the result of rediscovering bits and pieces of it, both from historically Western sources preserved by the Arabs and Byzantines as well as trade and contact with the East.
A lot of liberal Christians view the Church as a sort of progressive force in human life, shepherding humanity towards redemption from its inherently sinful nature. If you set aside the questions of theology and just group people together based on their valuing a world that is comprehensible, ordered, and stable vs. one that is cryptic, fuzzy, and unpredictable you'd probably find similar numbers of religious and secular thinkers on both sides. The Church is a bureaucratic institution at the end of the day, and bureaucrats do love their comprehensible, orderly systems. They're both trying to 'improve' humanity, it's just a question of what they believe that 'improvement' entails.
It shouldn't be surprising, as most of the Enlightenment thinkers were, themselves, educated by clergy so of course the ones who excel will be the ones who did well under that type of approach to the world.
As a counterpoint, you could argue that the Church (and the general chaos after the fall of Rome) did the erasure and the Enlightenment was the result of rediscovering bits and pieces of it, both from historically Western sources preserved by the Arabs and Byzantines as well as trade and contact with the East.
A lot of liberal Christians view the Church as a sort of progressive force in human life, shepherding humanity towards redemption from its inherently sinful nature. If you set aside the questions of theology and just group people together based on their valuing a world that is comprehensible, ordered, and stable vs. one that is cryptic, fuzzy, and unpredictable you'd probably find similar numbers of religious and secular thinkers on both sides. The Church is a bureaucratic institution at the end of the day, and bureaucrats do love their comprehensible, orderly systems. They're both trying to 'improve' humanity, it's just a question of what they believe that 'improvement' entails.
It shouldn't be surprising, as most of the Enlightenment thinkers were, themselves, educated by clergy so of course the ones who excel will be the ones who did well under that type of approach to the world.