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Enlightenment explained

"Do you know what astounds me most about the world? It is the impotence of force to establish anything. In the end, the sword is always conquered by the mind."

Napoleon Bonaparte declared this in the post-French Revolution world. He had noticed that armies could conquer territory and will the populace through mere force of arms, yet when thoughts spread, they could capture the whole populace with greater force. The rise of the West has often been marked by the period of thought that became known as the Enlightenment. During this time there was a huge backlash against the Church as whole in a massive philosophical uprising. Europe had traditionally been the foundation of the Christian faith since the fall of the Roman Empire. Northern and Western European nations preserved the faith for generations, both through the Catholic and Protestant worldviews. However, these traditional beds of Christianity became tremendous areas of intellectual revolution. The faith of Europe was shaken and in course, forever changed the world.

The Enlightenment stemmed from the reemergence of Classical Greco-Roman thought, rooted in the Renaissance's humanistic approach. Yet, when Martin Luther definitively defended his objections to the Catholic Church at Worms, the European people were given the proverbial "green light" to think for themselves. The blatant disregard for Church authority allowed scientific thinkers to challenge the foundations of thought. Devout Christian men brought issues to light, men like Galileo and Newton challenged the contemporary thoughts. Galileo challenged the scientific world with a "Heliocentric" philosophy and about the celestial bodies. He remarks about the moon that:

"[The] surface of the moon is not smooth, uniform, and precisely spherical in number of philosophers believe it to be, but is uneven, rough, and full of cavities and prominences, being unlike the face of the earth, relieved by chains of mountains and deep valleys."

This does not seem like a major issue, but by challenging the core beliefs of the world would have ramifications, like transformation into the ostracism of "heretic." Newton believed solemnly that the scientific outlook could be compatible with faith, yet the authoritarian Roman Catholic Church saw otherwise. An "intelligent Agent" must be seen as the architect of the world, as he outlines in his 1704 work Optics. There was no contradiction in scientific advancement and his faith.

However, there was a more radical change when


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