2023-06-03 from Douglass Carmichael https://douglasscarmichael.substack.com/p/imagination-needed:
... In China Lao Tzu and Confucius created an atmosphere of relative calm while in the West Rome split into two parallel structures, christianity and the empire. But this collapsed under the pressures of trade, population , extension into Americas, colonialism, slavery , wealth-devouring wars. The loss of the christian belief world left a gap filled by the Treaty of Westphalia and the federalization of belief in segments, Catholic, Protestant, trade and science. No coherent thought was possible. Brutal empires were replaced slow by anarchy and despotism.
Charles Taylor - A Secular Age
2023-05-14 Notes on Gnosticism