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Galileo: The Cause Of The Scientific Revolution

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The scientific revolution was a significant period for scientific discovery and growth, which started in the 1500’s and ended in the 1700’s. For thousands of years, people have observed and tracked the “heavenly bodies” to find some insight into how the universe functions. The planets are probably named after Greek and Roman gods because of the pagan belief that the heavenly bodies were gods and goddesses. The age old theory that the earth was the center of the universe was argued by Copernicus and eventually disproved by Galileo. Galileo was a firm believer in Copernicus’ theory that the earth was not the center of the universe and worked to prove him right despite the fact that no one believed in Copernicus’ theory. If he had not done …show more content…

This is because Galileo built his own telescope to study the heavenly bodies and gathered evidence including the fact that the moon’s surface is cratered, and the sun sometimes has spots; disproving that the heavens were unchanging and perfect. He also discovered that Jupiter had moons that orbited it, which helped him figure out that earth’s moon orbits around the earth. Because the bible stated that “the lord . . . has established the world: it shall never be moved,” Galileo was labeled a heretic for trying to contradict it and was sentenced to a lifetime of house arrest. I think that if Galileo hadn’t been ordered to house arrest, he would have been able to contribute much more to science. But because he was sentenced to house arrest rather than jailed or put to death, he was able to contribute to and improve the way that we do experiments and later, his works were released so that we could further our knowledge. While I think that it might have been better for religion to stay separate from science, historically, they have pushed each other …show more content…

The people who embraced the new world view called themselves “people of letters, but were called philosophes by other people, usually mockingly. The people of letters greatly admired Newton and thought that they were living in an “age of light,” which later gave the enlightenment its name. People stopped taking astrology seriously because they thought that the heavenly bodies were useless lumps that would have no impact on their lives, but had they continued to pay attention to it, our society may have been very different. Most people don’t believe in horoscopes, but the people that do may be somewhat of an oddity. If astrology continued to be relevant, the opposite would probably be true. During the enlightenment, a new religion surfaced. Deism is a religious belief that recognizes a Supreme Being but rejects the idea that it influences nature and destiny. Deism quickly lost popularity and led to religious doubt in the form of agnostics and atheists. I think that doubt is an important human experience religious or otherwise. Even the most devoted Christians have doubts, no matter how brief, their faith is usually stronger for it. Although differences in religion has only become more acceptable since the enlightenment, it is not unheard of for someone to be persecuted because of their religion. Muslims, for example, are called terrorists, attacked, and

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