A great article but, in my opinion, it falls short... Whereas I believe it's important to keep passion alive (in whatever form, whether religious, artistic or otherwise) as a counter-balance to 'reasoning oneself into an untenable position (something that often manifests itself in the suicidal and bereft of hope), I think we also need to keep in mind that reason is just as important as a 'bulwark' against the very motivations to which irresponsible passion can and does often lead. In my humble opinion, the 'tree of divine wisdom' has two branches - reason and faith (or passion, in this case). One protects us from zealotry and unreasonable fantasy and the other protects us from our failure to grasp epistemology or 'the theory of human knowledge'. Ideally, these 'branches' should be of equal length. I also believe that the failure of many to tend to this responsibility is the reason we have so many problems in the world today - scatterbrained artists (Van Gogh is a great example), terrorism, religious zealots, criminal leadership and so on (things which are not necessarily mutually exclusive).

A great article but, in my opinion, it falls short... Whereas I believe it's important to keep passion alive (in whatever form, whether religious, artistic or otherwise) as a counter-balance to 'reasoning oneself into an untenable position (something that often manifests itself in the suicidal and bereft of hope), I think we also need to keep in mind that reason is just as important as a 'bulwark' against the very motivations to which irresponsible passion can and does often lead. In my humble opinion, the 'tree of divine wisdom' has two branches - reason and faith (or passion, in this case). One protects us from zealotry and unreasonable fantasy and the other protects us from our failure to grasp epistemology or 'the theory of human knowledge'. Ideally, these 'branches' should be of equal length. I also believe that the failure of many to tend to this responsibility is the reason we have so many problems in the world today - scatterbrained artists (Van Gogh is a great example), terrorism, religious zealots, criminal leadership and so on (things which are not necessarily mutually exclusive). - The ‘age of reason’ cliché needs to die – Enlightenment thinkers had a much more nuanced understanding of the passions