Scientific Revolution And Secularism

Scientific Revolution And Secularism In the 17th century, Europe had undergone a drastic change in science, philosophy and politics. With new innovations in science, the world began to demystify and doubts began to disappear as new discoveries were being accomplished and questions about the anatomy, evolution and mankind were being answered. The Scientific Revolution was an indirect cause of the growth of secularism in Western Europe during the 17th century. Scientists attempted to address issues of humanity and the universe, furthermore through new discoveries they challenged preconceived notions. Galileo Galilei, William Harvey and Sir Isaac Newton were among the many scientists who, through experimentation and analysis, arrived at some of the most important scientific developments in history. Galileo Galilei was an astronomer and a physicist, born in Pisa, Italy and studied at the University of Pisa. He accumulated mathematical and scientific evidence to support the theories Copernicus held of a heliocentric universe, a theory which defied the Church and went against Aristotles theory of destiny and a divine plan. Galileo started performing controlled experiments such as rolling balls down slopes and measuring their speeds, he showed that motion could be described mathematically (Newman, 2002, p.72). Galileos physical experimentation had liberated people from confinement of religion and had initiated questioning of the Churchs views. His findings had influenced such philosophers as Locke, Machiavelli and Hobbes who had composed modernistic theories of humans and governments which had little to no room for religion and opinions of the Church. Galileo had challenged three major aspects of the Churchs beliefs, one being that there is unification between celestial and terrest rial mechanics and that the universe is subject to change. The second being his mathematical approach to reasoning which was in sharp contrast to divine revelation as the source of truth and the Church as authority of judgment. Galileos last aspect that challenged the beliefs of the Church was his support of the heliocentric cosmology, essentially diminishing the geocentric worldview of importance of humans and the idea of scattered stars with no pattern (Ardent, 2004). By remodeling the telescope, Galileo had since allowed people to visualize and experience these scientific discoveries. He disproved many long-held assumptions made by the Catholic Church during his time, and through his experimentations encouraged a new train of thought which in turn resulted in the beginning of secularism. Similar to Galileo, William Harvey had made significant discoveries which contrasted the views of the Church. Harvey was an English physician who was not satisfied with divine power as an explanation for the workings of the human body (Newman, 2002, p.73). His discoveries in human anatomy were one of the most significant achievements in physiology and medicine in the 17th century, but his work had opposed the Creation Story, which led to skepticism of the Bible. Harvey had made the discovery that humans and animals only had a limited amount of blood by cutting open the vein of an animal and allowing it to pour out (Bhatia, 2010). This was considerably different from the previous thought of blood being a natural spirit where it flowed out to vital spirits in the heart and animal spirits in the brain (Bhatia, 2010). Harvey did not burden himself with these theories but took it upon himself to solve the mysteries of the human body, separating fact from fiction and eluding the beliefs of the Catholic Church. Distinguishing that the heart was a pump and not a filtration plant where blood simply just passes through (Newman, 2002, p.74) had created a whole new way of thinking, people now knew how the heart worked and were beginning to doubt the thought of a divine plan and God creating humans, which brought about thoughts of evolution. In 1642, Sir Isaac Newton combined the knowledge of Galileo and Harvey, along with his own, to create yet another breakthrough in science which resulted in the growth of secularism. Newton accurately described the movements of objects in the solar system and how they move under the influence of universal gravitation (Bhatia, 2010). Newton had further influenced secularism by his discoveries in science, his Three Laws of Motion stated: if no force acts on an object, it will remain at rest or maintain its constant motion in a straight line every change of motion or acceleration is proportional to the force that caused the change and inversely proportional to the objects mass for every action force, there is no equal reaction force in the opposite direction. (Newman, 2002, p.73). These Three Laws of Motion had allowed people to make sense of their actions and the actions of the objects they use on a daily basis. Newton had explained things with concrete evidence, along with certain things that had only been explained in biblical texts which allowed more of a separation between government and religion. Science and technology having liberated men from the superstitions of religion, now guaranteed continuous process. (Genovese, 1997). He showed that God does not make everything happen, which caused people to stray from the belief of divine power and use science as a way of explaining the world. Newtons scientific enhancement, along with the works of Harvey on human anatomy and Galileo in astronomy and the universe, had truly boosted the growth of secularism in the 17th century. Through scientific analysis, these three scientists created new thoughts and theories that challenged the assumptions of mankind made by the Catholic Church. It was the beginning of a new era of thinking, an era where evolution of mankind and the universe were proved with scientific evidence and not holy texts. The Scientific Revolution had significantly affected the growth of secularism in the 17th century and has continued to affect secularism in the 21st century, as people still question and doubt Gods existence, faith and religion.

Finding Freedom in The Yellow Wallpaper :: Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Finding Freedom in "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a story of a woman with psychological difficulties whose husband's prescribed "treatment" of her mental illness sends her into insanity. The so-called treatment consists of the "Rest Cure" as developed by the notable Dr. Weir Mitchell, which includes complete bed rest, no work, and no emotional or physical stimulus - an enforced idleness of body, mind, and spirit. The husband, John, takes complete control of all decisions on behalf of his wife concerning her living arrangements, social encounters, and medical treatment. Her mental dysfunction is only exacerbated to the point of complete insanity by John's prescription of idleness and denial of mental stimulation. The woman in the story wants to get well and makes several suggestions to John to help her in healing, however, John consistently refuses all of her requests and down-plays her illness. The woman in this story knows that she is not quite mentally well. She believes that she only suffers from "temporary nervous depression - a slight hysterical tendency." She believes that her "case is not serious!" The woman's husband, John, is a physician and does not really believe that she is ill. With all good intentions, he controls her life and makes all decisions. He believes that he always knows what is best for her, no matter what she wants or desires, or what she believes may help her to heal. Several times throughout the story the woman must rush to put away her writings before she is caught for John believes that she is given to flights of fancy and imagination and must rest her mind. John believes that his plan of treatment will cure her mild case of mental illness, no matter what she fee ls will help her to recover. He dismisses her suggestions as unimportant and trivial. His wife wanted to stay in the downstairs room where there were roses on the window and pretty curtains, but John decided that the upstairs bedroom was best for her, so that was where she stayed. When she told John that she did not believe that she was getting well in the old house and that she wanted to go home, he told her that they must stay the remainder of the three weeks. She wanted to visit with her Cousin Henry and Julia, and John would not allow her to visit for she would not be able to handle such a visit.

American Indian Stories: Native Americans Essay

In American Indian Stories, University of Nebraska Press Lincoln and London edition, the author, Zitkala-Sa, tries to tell stories that depicted life growing up on a reservation. Her stories showed how Native Americans reacted to the white man’s ways of running the land and changing the life of Indians. â€Å"Zitkala-Sa was one of the early Indian writers to record tribal legends and tales from oral tradition† (back cover) is a great way to show that the author’s stories were based upon actual events in her life as a Dakota Sioux Indian. This essay will describe and analyze Native American life as described by Zitkala-Sa’s American Indian Stories, it will relate to Native Americans and their interactions with American societies, it will discuss the major themes of the book and why the author wrote it, it will describe Native American society, its values and its beliefs and how they changed and it will show how Native Americans views other non-Natives. Before the introduction of the â€Å"pale face† Native Americans lived a calm and serene life. They lived in big communities and help one another in order to survive. They had a form of religion, poly-theistic, that would be their main form of salvation. They had chiefs and warriors. They had teepees that would allow them to quickly pack up and move. The Native Americans were a nomadic, primitive people that did not live up to the whiter man’s view of â€Å"civilization†. However, the white man, pale face, felt the need to change the Native Americans barbaric ways of life. The Americans were smart in their efforts in trying to convert the Indians. They would go after the kids because they were still young and gullible. â€Å"Yes, my child, several others besides Judewin are going away with the palefaces. Your brother said the missionaries had inquired about his little sister†¦ â€Å"Did he tell them to take me, mother† (40). The children were impressionable. In this first story, the daughter gets hooked on going with the missionaries because they said they had apple trees and being that she has never seen an apple tree, she begged her mother to go not knowing that her mother did not want to send her away. Some Indians enjoyed leaving with the Americans; others did not because of what the Americans had done to the Indians. The mother in this story had told her daughter stories of what the paleface had done and how they had killed most of her family. â€Å"There is what the paleface has done! Since then your father too has been buried in a hill nearer the rising sun. We where once very happy. But the paleface has stolen our lands and driven us hither. Having defrauded us of our land, the paleface forced us away† (10). Having knowing this, the little girl still persisted and wanted to go with the paleface. Many of the Indians that left with the missionaries were gone for many years and did not know how much had changed back at home. In the story The Soft-Hearted Sioux a young man comes back home after receiving an education from the missionaries. He had left before he was taught how to survive out in the wild. He came back to dying and starving parents. He was brainwashed by the missionaries because he went against his family’s customs and told the medicine man never to come back and that God will save his father. He started preaching God’s words to his people and they left the community. His father was growing sicker and sicker and he needed food. His son went out everyday trying to get something but had no skills in hunting. His father had told him to go two hills over and he could find meat. With no concept of ownership, the son went and killed a cow that belonged to an American. Upon leaving with the meat he was chased down and attacked by the â€Å"owner† of the cattle. The son accidentally killed the man and fled back to his father’s teepee only to realize that he was too late and that his father had died. He was so conditioned by the white man that he had forgotten his ancestors’ ways of survival. The book suggests that Native Americans were not savages and that they had a normal lifestyle before the Americans came in and changed everything. Their society was based upon helping one another out. It was also based upon mobility. They would have to make homes in such a way that they could just pack up and leave whenever they needed to. The Native Americans had a values based on nature, life and death. The believed that you must respect nature, respect the living and put a special emphasis on the dead. In The Dead Man’s Plum Bush the little girl walked by a plum bush that had just blossomed out beautiful plums. When the girl had reached to grab one of the plums her mother had told her not to and explained that â€Å"the roots are wrapped around an Indian’s skeleton. A brave is buried here. While he lived he was so fond of playing the game of striped plum seeds that, at his death, his set of plum seeds were buried in his hands. From them sprang up this little bush† (32). The fact that the bush was there because of a man’s fascination with plum seeds and that no one can enjoy its fruits shows how much respect for the dead is played through the Native Americans’ beliefs. Zitkala-Sa’s main motives for writing this book was to show â€Å"one of the first attempts by a native American woman to write her own story† (back cover). Another main motive was to inform people of the way that the Americans came and took over the Indians’ land and people; the land was taken by force and the people by bribing little kids. The main theme for the book was to show how the Indians felt about the Americans. Going by the book, there is no set way of showing how many people liked or disliked the Americans. However, it is noticeable that the parents clearly did not like the Americans because they knew what the Americans had done to them in the past and what they are doing to them presently. They knew that the Americans came in and killed their ancestors and forced others to leave their lands. They knew that they were taking their children away and brainwashing them into thinking that their families were savages and that the Americans had more to offer them. They knew that the Americans were making their kids forget about their ways of living and their beliefs. The children, however, saw the Americans invitation as a way to better themselves and their families. The children would happily go away with the American strangers thinking that everything would be better for them. Zitkala-Sa tried to show how her people were treated by Americans in her book American Indian Stories. She showed how the Indians life was before the Americans and how it had changed after the introduction of the Americans. She proved that not all of the Indians liked the white people. She proved that most of the children that left did not remember their family’s way of life. She proved that when the Americans came they not only took the Indians’ land, they also took their people. Works Cited Zitkala-Sa. American Indian Stories. University Of Nebraska Press. Lincoln and Lo.

The Common Themes Of Environmental Effects On Religion

Throughout the history of many civilizations, certain characteristics have presented themselves and many of which have been recognized as a commonality in several societies. These frequently seen patterns in history provide important insights to the functions and behaviors of ancient civilizations. There are many commonalities that are existent in many civilizations, but three clearly emerge, as they are fundamental to many societies’ cultures. The common themes of environmental effects on religion, combination of organized religion and culture and the formation of an organized language have all proven to be present throughout all stages of history and each all seem to play a major rule in a civilization’s ability to grow, thrive, expand and even just sustain itself. This common need for expansion, survival and growth present what appear to be history’s â€Å"Universal Laws of Humanics†. Before looking at the pattern seen in the formation of organized religion as a tool for expansion, it is important to look at the patterns that influence the formation of ancient world religions. A similarity that appears to be present in many civilizations’ organized religion is the impact of the environment. Not often do we see the words geography and religion linked together, but throughout time connections can be made between the geography of a society and the religion they organize whether the effects are conspicuous or minor. â€Å"In the very nature of things any system of religious belief, inShow MoreRelatedTo What Extent Can quot;waverleyquot; Be Called an Anti-romantic Novel?1295 Words   |  6 Pagesyet restricting for the authors of the time. Through the portrayals within poetry of nature and controversial subjects such as religion, politics and people, the romantic form was developed, with fresh ways of writing and new narrative styles. 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