Before the Age of Enlightenment the earth was filled with many nations living under vastly differing beliefs about the world.
Tribes, nations and empires possessed fanciful superstitious beliefs about their own importance in the Big Picture.
Religion helped man find a place among fearful gods and demons. Faith and Belief, ritual and performance duties, helped man allay fears by
becoming active in appeasing the Gods and shunning the evil spirits.
Judaism allowed adherents a means of ridding themselves of sin (animal sacrifice) and accounting for wrongs (Justice via Law).
Christianity removed animal sacrifice and substituted fealty to the Church (Catholic). The Mass, Saints, prayers, processions and such
plugged the individual into a HUGE ENTERPRISE (Church) that worked to keep humanity safe in God's eyes.
Protestantism wrested away the Unified Obedience to monlithic structure (Catholic Church) and placed in the individual believer's own responsibility.
Luther substituted SOLA SCRIPTURA (the Bible Alone!) for the Church's Magesterium (Tradition and Infallible pronouncement).
But a huge wave of powerful NEW THOUGHTS were washing up in affairs of humanity which could not be helf back by retreat into superstition or ritual observance: RATIONAL ENLIGHTENMENT.
It began with empircal proof (telescope) that man (on Earth) was not the center of a God-constructed universe.
Galileo, Johannes Kepler, Ptolemy, Newton struck down Medieval fancies with thunderous effectiveness.
The invention of the printing press allowed circulation of individual ideas of a challenging nature.
A rebirth (Renaissance) of LEARNING, literacy and free will was wiping away fear and dependancy on Institutions of Scripture and Authority.
Isaac Newton's laws of Physics, Charles Darwin's demonstrations of gradual change in plant and animal life all struck at the core of once IRONCLAD TRUE BELIEF in what the Church and Scripture had claimed was literal TRUTH.
Abandoning superstition for rational education became the passage from Pre-Enlightenment to Post-Enlightenment.
Religions were in turmoil and society coped as best it could.
CONSTANT RE-INTERPRETATION of old belief into Modernity created a Fundamentalist core vs Agnostic Humanist separation in social structure.
Church and State were divided.
Free Will and personal interpretation made claims either tested and rejected or fought against by old world theists.
The New World was peopled by Puritans, Pilgrims and various fanatics seeking to demonstrate their Utopian perfections to the world.
As Kings were toppled and the Rights of Man gained sway, religion no longer CONTROLLED THE WORLD (the Western World, that is).
Islam remained Old World and Pre-Enlightenment. Judasm split into REFORM vs Chasidim.
But--where do YOU come in to all this?
Which are you?
Pre-Enlightenment: dependant on scripture, church and Authority?
Post-Enlightenment: testing everything with practical curiousity?
Tell us.
