So a bit of intellectual autobiography.
When I went to college, way way back when mastodons still roamed in what is now Central Park. the university that I went to then required that every student take (a) at least four semesters of a physical science, or at least four semesters of mathematics, or at least two semesters of a physical science and at least two semesters of mathematics, (b) at least two semesters on the western canon of literature, (c) at least one semester on western music, (d) at least one semester on western art, and (e) at least four semesters on western philosophy, economics, or political theory. If you graduated from that college, you knew enough pure theory to be wildly dangerous in every major area of human endeavor, but at least you had some inkling about western culture before you ventured out into parts unknown.
When I first matriculated, I was planning on becoming a chemical engineer (what WAS I thinking) while most definitely taking a minor in beer and girls. So I took qualitative chemistry and real analysis for the a requirement. I have never had so miserable a time intellectually as I did in real analysis. I kept fighting what I found the ugly and anti-intuitive basis of standard analysis and trying instead to develop my own brand of analysis. Ironically, at the exact same time, Robinson was developing non-standard analysis at Yale. I just went to the wrong school for analysis, but I was only 17 and knew nothing about anything. Then, as a sophomore, I took organic chemistry. OMG: memorization on memorization. So I completely switched to European history and languages (while retaining the minor in beer and girls). Understanding barons and Machiavelli proved invaluable in a business career.
Now I have no bent whatsoever toward religion, but I do love poetry and myth. And in the course on the western canon of literature, we started with Genesis, Job, Mathew, and John. Job and John are great poetry, and Genesis is myth on the grand scale. John starts with an allusion that, in the original Greek, is also a pun. Early in Genesis, the Hebrew says "God says 'Let there be light.'" But John starts with a verse that includes the word "logos" three times and the word theos (inflected twice). "Theos" means a god, but "Logos" has a very wide field of meaning in Greek. One meaning is "word," alluding to Genesis. But another meaning is "logic, reason." Light = reason. And I could believe in a religion that deified reason. So your quotation from John appeals to me (not that I am trying at all to say that John is reasonable overall).
