A Great Period Of Time - 1528 Words

For a great period of time, the main source of authority in the early western world was the Bible. People lived there lives according to the bible and followed Christian tradition. â€Å"Prior to the Enlightenment, believing in God in the West was like believing in the sunrise; the answer to all the big questions of life was God† (Wade). During this time many things revolved around the bible, as did the government since the bible was the main source of knowledge. Many viewed Christianity as the centerpiece of their lives, but the view of many would soon change during the time of the Enlightenment. The enlightenment began in the early 1700’s and during this time period many people started coming up with new ideas about how the world worked.†¦show more content†¦Individuals wanted to use reason and rational to figure out how the world functioned, and they started to not accept religion as an answer. What spurred the Enlightenment to begin was the rise of skeptici sm across the region, the increase in literature, the works of Isaac Newton and The Scientific Revolution. The Scientific Revolution was probably the biggest reason for the Enlightenment to begin. The Scientific Revolution was a movement that began just before the Enlightenment where many new ideas came about through the work of science. There were many individuals that came up with new scientific ideas and many of them were put on trial for heresy, for having a belief that went against Christian tradition. We can see this with the work of Galileo and the new ideas that he came up with. His main claim was that the world was no longer a spiritual world and that it was a world of matter and science. These ideas really challenge the Christian faith and in fact, the pope and religious authority wanted him to give up his ideas, fearing that they would impact the Christian faith. With these new ideas, the gap between religion and science in the world was getting wider and wider. Many more individuals starting coming up with new ideas and these new ideas are what began the â€Å"Enlightened† time period in Europe. New ideas were