This statement was proven to be precise. Eugenicists helped to understand genetics and traits of humans while Frankenstein provided theories for new scientific practices. Conversely, both works brought more negative effects and situations than positive, even though either one was initially intended to do so. Both provided reason to believe that along with new scientific frontiers, also comes new sought out problems which could occur delivering the notion that new technology should be used with great care and a sense of
Religious belief systems have been challenged by scientific belief systems which emergenced during the period known as enlightenment. This period had two key principles: the belief that reason could provide an understanding of the world and that this understanding could be used to improve the lives of human beings. These two principles resulted in the procedure for doing scientific research being created. Sociologists such as Frazer, believed that the introduction and grounds of scientific explanations would cause religion to disappear. However, sociologists are divided on whether the impact of science has been positive or negative due to the many achievements science has made such as weapons of mass destruction and the eradication of many fatal diseases through drugs.
Enlightenment thinkers had three main long term beliefs that helped to shape America’s government. The first was belief in progress. The idea of progress was born after the scientific revolution, which influenced people to use human reason to solve social problems. Secondly, it caused people to stop looking at their church for guidance and to start using reason and logic to solve problems. The Enlightenment thinkers also wanted to abolish religious superstitions and promote tolerance of all religions.
The Scientific Revolution was a period in the 1500’s and 1600’s in which scientific thinkees challenged traditional ideas from the Catholic Church and relied on observation and experiments. They also believed that God controlled everything. European scholars accepted the theory of the Greek astronomer Claudius Ptolemy. Ptolemy taught that the Earth was the center of the universe. Which is what the Catholic church also believed.
Scientific advancements such as heliocentricity and atomism disproved geocentricity and Aristotelian beliefs. The Catholic Church supported many of those views and anyone who opposed those beliefs were made instant targets of the pope and his follwers.4 Punishments were very severe, including house arrest, to discourage scientific advancement, but some refused to give in to church demands. Aristotelian belief was that the Earth was the center of everything, which tied well into the churches’ misunderstanding of several bible verses. This misunderstanding caused the church to strictly promote the idea of an Earth-centered universe.4 Many scientists were persecuted, but Galileo was the most notable. With him inventing the one of the first telescopes, he could see multiple areas of space never seen before such as Jupiter.
This is not so in other religions. Such religions as Hinduism for instance do not believe this. For everything you do wrong you will be punished. Christianity is slowly evolving and trying to become even more appealing to society, there are still many downfalls. Todays society is steadly envolving and the views on how the Universe works today is a total different story on how people thought it worked back then.
As we see in this segment of Document 6 “Reason is in the estimation of the philosopher what grace is to the Christian. Grace determines the Christian's action; reason the philosopher's.” the philosophers of the Enlightenment strove to explain everything by means of logic and reason which was a mindset that was pioneered during the Scientific Revolution. Essentially, Enlightenment thinkers took the rational mindset from scientific discoveries of the Scientific Revolution and began to apply it to society. Isaac Newton's discoveries established the principles of the Enlightenment. At the time, discovery was looked at with skepticism as people had become accustomed to the bible being the only source of information about the world.
Religion also provided a stage for new and old ideas to collide. Modernist thinkers believed religion could adapt to accept new scientific advances, especially Darwin’s theory of natural selection. Traditionalists did not. They considered religion to be fixed and condemned Darwin’s work. The most notable instance of this conflict is the Scopes Trial.
A theorist who strongly supports the idea of modernism is Anthony Giddens. His theory is that the new developments and technological advances we now have are a development of modernity. When speaking of the world today Giddens generalises it as being; “The attitudes and ways of life associated with modern societies, such as our belief in progress, the benefits of science and our capability to control the modern world” In relation to art, and artistic relevance, Modernity and modernism is key. Through the study of books I have come to the understanding that there were three major movements throughout history in which Art has drastically been revolutionised due to modernism. These times were particularly apparent in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
The relationship between religion and science has been a subject frequently discussed and studied in the modern world. While some, such as Abdus Salam (1984), argues that religion and science are cooperative, while others such as Neil deGrasse Tyson (1999) believe that the two aspects are fundamentally conflictory. In actuality, the relationship between religion and science is highly complex, but given the historical ties between the two (especially within Christianity and Islam, which will be discussed in this essay), I am inclined to believe that two are largely mutually complementary and even reliant upon one another, as Einstein's statement may suggest. Firstly, Einstein's statement that ‘science without religion is lame’ implies that progresses