Quote:
Originally Posted by Ea
As far as I'm aware the Reformation happened mainly because of economic oppression. The church had grown large and very, very powerful.
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certainly that was a catalyst, but Martin Luther was the start of people QUESTIONING what they had been spoon fed.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Laz116
After the earthquake in Lisbon in 1755 the danish national poet of the time and ardent lutheran wrote a poem about the earthquake as God's just punishment, referencing to Sodoma and Gomorra etc.
Meanwhile Voltaire took another course. As a response to the earthquake his main character addresses the spiritual leader at the end of one of his poems and says (quoted from the top of my head) something like this:
Hope for a better life, hope for improvement of ones situation in this life is also something different than religion and God according to Voltaire. God promise us the afterlife. Critical thinking promise us a better life in this life we're living aat the cost of the afterlife.
The point is that it wasn't the reformation that allowed critical thinking, it was secularism.
Edit: found the real thing. It's from the "POEM ON THE LISBON DISASTER; Or an Examination of the Axiom, “All is Well”":
http://app.libraryofliberty.org/?opt...html&Itemid=27 |
see above