Robert Harsh, for example, declares in ‘Exposing the Lie: Inherit the Wind’ that "Christians, particularly William Jennings Bryan, are consistently lampooned throughout, while the skeptics and agnostics are consistently portrayed as intelligent, kindly, and even heroic. I simply cannot escape the conclusion that the writers of the screen play never intended to write a historically accurate account of the Scopes trial, nor did they seriously attempt to portray the principal characters and their beliefs in an unbiased and accurate way." Another perspective of critical sentiment is voiced by Carol Inannone in ’First Things’ when she states that "Inherit the Wind reveals a great deal about a mentality that demands open-mindedness and excoriates dogmatism, only to advance its own certainties more insistently... A more historically accurate dramatization of the Scopes Trial might have been far richer and more interesting - and might also have given its audiences a genuine dramatic tragedy to watch. It would not have sent its audience home full of moral superiority and happy thoughts about the march of progress." And so the film has had its share of controversy and
Task: “Luther was both a revolutionary and a conservative.” Evaluate this statement with the respect to Luther’s responses to the political and social questions of his day. During the 16th century, the Catholic Church was seen as corrupt because of certain practices such as indulgences. This corruption, lead many people to stand up against the Church, and this began The Protestant Reformation. One of the most influential people of this time was Martin Luther. Martin Luther’s responses to political and social questions during this time were often either revolutionary or conservative.
He believed the selling indulgences was wrong, and even the pope, Pope Leo X, did not have the authority to abolish sins through payments. Luther recognized that at this time, the Church was more focused on accumulating money than saving its people and spreading the word of Christ. Luther believed that only God has the ability to take away the sins of humanity. Martin Luther published his opinions in a document titled Ninety-Five Theses. The monk's writing spread quickly around Europe, and he soon posed a serious threat to the Catholic Church.
This act of treason meant that anyone who disagreed with the break with Rome would be executed due to heresy. Therefore, it seems as though Henry did not fully accept the protestant beliefs, because he killed Tyndale for spreading them. And if the King could not fully accept the new Protestant religion, then how was the rest of England expected to? Therefore, this leads to the conclusion that Protestantism made only limited gains in England, due to the fact that it was not as accepted as Catholicism was. The idea shown in source 7 of Henry not being able to fully separate himself from his catholic beliefs is further back up by the evidence found in source 8.
Arthur Dimmesdale committed the greater sin because he was a man of faith. He was not true to his sacred vows. He committed an adultary which is considered to be the worst sin because it is against one of the ten commandments. He told the people of lord to be true and faithful to their religion when he was not himself. He did not tell the people about his sin like Hester Prynne's was told.
In the 16th century people who were not catholic were killed and tortured, so that the catholic church could stay in power and people would stay catholic. Today the world is completely opposite, it accepts any religion even if it conflicts with other religion such as Judaism and Christianity. Those two religion hated each other in the past but have grown and evolved, they still have different beliefs but it doesn't matter since they learned to get along thanks to the inquisition. What the inquisition has done for the modern world is teach us what is wrong and what is right; it showed us our mistakes that we'll not do again. The expression "learn from our mistakes" is true in this situation.
Ibbetson makes a blatant appeal to authority by saying that lack of god in the debate over stem cell research will lead to “…an ending point worse than past atrocities.” Not only does Ibbetson contradict himself by having earlier criticized Bush for basing his stance on stem cell research on his religious beliefs, he also manages to somehow tie Hitler back into the debate, although far more subtly this time around through the use of the phrase “past atrocities.” When taking an outward perspective at the argument Ibbetson makes one can realize how ridiculous it truly is. Aside from actually providing any legitimate solutions, Ibbetson essentially states that Stem cell research is a godless and vile science and in Obama’s support of it he will only succeed in reenacting actions brought forth by Hitler. Based merely on the first amendment alone Ibbetson’s final statement clearly has no place in the real life debate on stem cell research, however aside from that its only purpose is the same as any of his other arguments, to demonize those that actually support stem cells by essentially stating they are going against
Christians found it difficult to play a full part in Roman society because of many factors, even those who tried to be a “normal Roman” knew they never could be as much of Roman morality was conflicting with the morals of the Christian faith. One of the most obvious ways that Christians were different is that they did not worship the pantheon of Roman gods as most Romans did and therefore they were classed, ironically, as atheists. It is very obvious why they did not allow Christ to become another god equal to the others in the pantheon, in their eyes he was the one true God and they did not tolerate polytheism. Romans on the other hand could not tolerate monotheism! Christians however did try to be normal, everyday Romans by being good neighbours to those who weren’t Christians, they showed that they had integrity in what they believed and so earned the respect of many Romans.
Religious Right author David Barton, perhaps the most outspoken of the “wall of separation” critics, devoted an entire book, The Myth of Separation, to proving his claim that church-state separation is “absurd” and was a principle completely foreign to the Founding Fathers. He states: “In Jefferson’s full letter, he said separation of church and state means the government will not run the church, but we will use Christian principles with government.” More recently, two researchers have published books that criticize the almost infamous status the metaphor has achieved, especially before the U. S. Supreme Court. Daniel Dreisbach, who wrote, Thomas Jefferson and the Wall of Separation between Church and State, is critical of the courts for making the metaphor a practical rule of constitutional law. Dreisbach’s basic argument is that the metaphor fails to distinguish between the conception of “separation” and “non-establishment.” Dreisbach is correct in saying that metaphors can be overstated, misused, and made poor substitutes for legal
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.