The Enlightenment - Religion - Nairaland
Nairaland Forum / Nairaland / General / Religion / The Enlightenment (1130 Views)
Golden Enlightenment From Atum / The Incredible Selfishness Of Ancient & Contemporary Enlightenment Teachers. / Under The Bodhi Tree (the Sun Of Enlightenment Shines) (2) (3) (4)
| The Enlightenment by Nobody: 4:04pm On Aug 02, 2016 |
Getting a (Bad) Name: Athée [b]The word "atheist" existed in ancient Greece as atheos. Today the word refers to somebody who doesn’t believe in any gods, but the Greeks used it to signify anyone who rejected the gods of a given place and time. the people who were called atheos were assumed to believe in some gods, but they didn’t root for the home team. The term reappears in mid-16th century France as athée, but it still wasn’t quite the same meaning as today.It was an epithet, first of all an accusation, not something anyone used to describe himself. And the accused was said to deny the Biblical God. Whether that person also denied Vishnu, Buddha, and the rest was trivial at that time and place. Denying the God of Abraham was shocking enough. Not until the late 18th-century Enlightenment did any European start calling himself an atheist. Even then, the term still focused only on the God of the Bible. Not until the 20th century did atheists begin to clearly make the universal point: I believe there are no gods of any kind, shape, or description. I disbelieve not just in your god, but in all gods named and unnamed. Barring new and compelling evidence, I reject the very idea. Have a nice day. [/b] 5 Likes 4 Shares |
| Re: The Enlightenment by Nobody: 4:07pm On Aug 02, 2016 |
Discovering a Whole New Way to Think: The Scientific Revolution [b] Copernicus’s theory of the sun-centered solar system was published in 1543, though the author wasn’t around when it hit the shelves, having wisely died a few weeks earlier. Even though few people read it and even fewer believed it at the time, this moment is as handy as any for calling the start of the Scientific Revolution. You need to bear in mind that this revolution wasn’t really about particular theories. It was about defining a powerful new way to think about the universe. By trying to control biases and establish objective frames of reference, this new way of asking questions and questioning answers revolutionized not just the sciences but humanity’s view of itself and its place in the scheme of things. Though it wasn’t intended to address questions of God, this pursuit of objectivity was a big step in making the atheist point of view possible. As long as everyone was thinking inside a religious system built on unquestionable assumptions among them the assumption that Scriptures are true because they say they’re true it’s pretty hard to find the exit. By establishing objectivity as a goal worth striving for and showing just how amazing the results can be when you give it a try, the Scientific Revolution laid the groundwork for the Enlightenment’s challenges to religious thought and just about everything that came afterward. The Enlightenment and the Renaissance were two of the biggest developments in Western history. But compared to the Scientific Revolution, they’re pebbles dropped into the human pond, and the Scientific Revolution is a Jack Black cannonball. The following Posts look at some of the events in the Scientific Revolution that proved important for later developments in atheism. Without these key moments, atheism would have remained in the starting gate, munching its hay. But with these crucial changes of perspective, atheism was out of the gates and around the first turn. [/b] 5 Likes 5 Shares |
| Re: The Enlightenment by Nobody: 4:10pm On Aug 02, 2016 |
Copernicus knocks the Earth off-center; Galileo backs him up: The first humbling [b] It’s easy for a person today to forget what a mental and emotional earthquake Copernicus eventually wrought by suggesting the Earth wasn’t the center of the universe after all. All the problems explaining planetary motion went away if the sun was at the center and Earth was just another planet. But bigger problems quickly rushed in to replace them, including the need for people to eat a massive, steaming slice of humble pie, realizing they weren’t apparently as important in the scheme of things as they thought. Hearing Copernicus’s theory had to be incredibly disorienting at the time. To the human mind, Earth had been not just central but stationery see Psalm 93 if you doubt that. The universe had whirled around Earth, then overnight, Earth became part of the dance, unstuck in the fabric of space. I imagine people gazing up at the night sky and suddenly losing their balance, and possibly their dinner as well. (As a side note, after the Earth wasn’t the center of the cosmos, the whole pretext for astrology vanished overnight though news of this development has yet to reach about 100 million Americans.) Copernicus explained the motion of the planets much better than Ptolemy’s old system of orbital curlicues and planetary whirligigs. But 95 percent of his book was math with not much direct observational evidence to speak of. That made it easier for those people who wanted to keep denying that the Earth had been demoted from the Big Chair to do so. Historians estimate that for a half-century after publication, only about 15 astronomers in all Europe really accepted the idea. Others dismissed it out of hand including the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. What sense did it make for God’s children, the center of his concern, to not be in the center of his creation? Good question. In the early 1600s, Galileo brought the evidence home when he observed the phases of Venus and the moons of Jupiter through his improved telescopes and published his findings and his support for Copernicus. The Inquisition declared his conclusions unacceptable, as if declaring something unacceptable was the same as disproving it. Galileo was arrested and tried for heresy. In exchange for sparing his life, he took it all back. (Some say he then took back the taking back, under his breath but I’ll leave that one for the mythmakers.) He spent his remaining nine years of life under house arrest for getting the universe right. As late as 1820, the Catholic Church still referred to the idea that the Earth revolved around the sun as "just a hypothesis". But Galileo’s books were removed from the Index of Forbidden Books in 1835, and Pope John Paul II vindicated Galileo . . . in 1992. (Mustn’t rush these things.) Neither Copernicus nor Galileo was an atheist, and decentering Earth by no means disproved God. But it was the first of several serious humblings for the human species. After the Earth was removed from center stage, it was easier for people to consider that religion had gotten a few other things wrong as well. [/b] 6 Likes 6 Shares |
| Re: The Enlightenment by Nobody: 4:14pm On Aug 02, 2016 |
Reconciling science and religion (or not) Whiston’s New Theory of the Earth [b] In the 21st century, trying to reconcile a literal reading of the Book of Genesis with modern science requires a serious misconception of the state of human knowledge. A little dishonesty doesn’t hurt either. But in 1696, science was still stretching its legs, and geology was a babe in arms. So when an English theologian named William Whiston tried to reconcile the Genesis account with what little was known scientifically about the Earth in 1696, that attempt wasn’t quite as dubious as the “intelligent design” game would be in later centuries. Whiston’s New Theory of the Earth was a noble first attempt to make the two systems play nice. Whiston described the how and when of the world’s creation, the Great Flood, and even the origin of Earth’s atmosphere (which he thought may have come from a passing comet a really interesting hypothesis). He came from the same tradition as Archbishop James Ussher, who a couple of generations earlier used the generations and ages given in the Bible to come up with an exact date of Creation: October 23, 4004 BCE. Ussher is often ridiculed for that today, which I think is really unfair. He was trying to apply a kind of scientific rigor to the task, using the limited data available at the time. Ussher and Whiston both deserve credit for a good 17th century try.Unlike their modern counterparts, they weren’t making themselves willfully blind to science. There just wasn’t much science to see yet. [/b] 6 Likes 5 Shares |
| Re: The Enlightenment by Nobody: 4:21pm On Aug 02, 2016 |
Stirring the Pot: The Clandestine Manuscripts [b] Though atheist thought had been up and running for centuries in places like China and India, European atheism (aside from a few peeps in ancient Greece) didn’t even start clearing its throat until the mid-1600s. At that time, anonymous books challenging the existence of God started to appear. Minor nobles and major thinkers of the time started to secretly pass them to each other. Blasphemy was still extremely illegal, and saying God didn’t exist was as blasphemous as you could get. The books were known as clandestina, or secret manuscripts. First came an anthology that pulled together some of the ancient Greek writings that challenged religious belief. Books with original arguments that added the perspective gained since the Scientific Revolution quickly followed. Then small pamphlets making individual arguments against belief in God began appearing across the continent more than 200 in all. With the sudden appearance of all of these secret documents, people started (secretly) talking and thinking about the existence of God in ways that were completely unthinkable a few generations earlier. They certainly didn’t evict God from Europe’s intellectual life even the Enlightenment only posted a first eviction notice, maybe turned off a few utilities. But the anonymous clandestina marked the first time early modern Europe seriously considered the possibility that the divine apartment had never been occupied to begin with. [/b] 4 Likes 4 Shares |
| Re: The Enlightenment by johnydon22(m): 4:28pm On Aug 02, 2016 |
Beautiful and educative - please carry on 2 Likes |
| Re: The Enlightenment by hahn(m): 4:31pm On Aug 02, 2016 |
2 Likes |
| Re: The Enlightenment by Nobody: 4:32pm On Aug 02, 2016 |
Singing the War Song of an Atheist Priest [b] In the last years of the 17th century, as Europe continued its slow recovery from 140 years of religious war, a young man named Jean Meslier became a Catholic priest even though he didn’t believe in God. He did so because his parents wanted him to, and because he felt he could do more to help people in need from inside the church than outside. During the course of 40 years as a priest, Meslier’s atheism and his contempt for all religion deepened. He felt that the Catholic Church made people subservient in his parish, that believing and saying things that weren’t true was unworthy, and that more misery and fear flows from religious belief than comfort and inspiration. But he felt trapped in his job, unable to be honest about his views for fear of arrest and execution. So Meslier did his priestly duties every day serving the poor and sick, giving homilies, burying the dead, and performing baptisms and funerals. By night he then returned to his room and worked on his magnum opus: the first book-length work in Europe written from an explicitly atheist perspective with an author’s name on it. And what a name it was a priest in the Holy Catholic Church. He wrote it for his parishioners, then left it for them to find upon his death. It remains one of the most astonishing, provocative, and moving works in the history of atheism. [/b] 5 Likes 5 Shares |
| Re: The Enlightenment by hahn(m): 4:35pm On Aug 02, 2016 |
AmenRa1: |
| Re: The Enlightenment by Nobody: 4:41pm On Aug 02, 2016 |
hahn:Whose Sol |
| Re: The Enlightenment by Nobody: 4:44pm On Aug 02, 2016 |
Thinking Dangerous Thoughts: The Enlightenment Philosophers [b] Like a lot of social and intellectual movements, the Age of Enlightenment was halfway done before anyone really thought of it as a movement. Important thinkers like Spinoza and Voltaire laid the groundwork for an explosion of challenging new questions and ideas. The magnifying glass that had been turned on the natural world throughout the 17th century was turned on human society in the 18th and what it saw wasn’t pretty. Unearned wealth and power were concentrated in the hands of a few, while the majority languished in equally unearned poverty and powerlessness. The Catholic Church held vast amounts of land and treasure, had several kings in its pocket, and exerted an oversized influence on what people could say,think, and aspire to. Talk across Europe and in the American colonies turned to radical ideas like basic human rights, individual liberty, tolerance, and equality. In addition to kings and aristocracies, the greatest impediment to progress in these areas was the overwhelming influence of the church. There are countless contributors to this new age of "dangerous" thinking, but a few well-placed thinkers can give you the flavor of the times. [/b] 2 Likes 3 Shares |
| Re: The Enlightenment by Nobody: 4:54pm On Aug 02, 2016 |
Crushing infamous things with Voltaire [b] The philosopher Voltaire (1694–1778) wasn’t an atheist, but a Deist, meaning he believed in a God but mostly non-intervening, non-communicating God. No prayers heard, no wrath dispensed. (Given the knowledge available at the time, I’d probably have been a Deist too.) Deists think the superstitions and rituals created by organized religion only get in the way of understanding. They believe reason is the only valid way to understand God and his creation, not tradition or revelation, and that tradition and revelation are therefore to be challenged and thrown out whenever possible. Voltaire spent a lot of effort badmouthing the atheists of his time. He said the idea of God is so important that “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him.” But because he challenged traditional religion, he was constantly accused of being an atheist anyway, something that irritated him to no end. Like it or not, his smart and articulate challenges laid the foundation for atheist thought in the Enlightenment and beyond. Like others of his time, Voltaire saw the Church as the greatest stumbling block to progress. One of his favorite expressions was “Écrasez l’infâme!,” which means Crush the infamous thing! specifically the Church and its clergy. Superstition was his enemy, and reason was his highest cause: "Superstition sets the whole world in flames," he said, "and philosophy quenches them." No philosopher did more to lay the foundation of the Enlightenment and to fan the flames of the French Revolution that ended it than Voltaire. [/b] 2 Likes 2 Shares |
| Re: The Enlightenment by Nobody: 5:12pm On Aug 02, 2016 |
Daring to know: Kant’s "Sapere aude!" [b] The Prussian philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) was a Deist who felt belief in God was “necessary from the practical point of view.” And like Voltaire, Kant saw natural reason as the best way to understand the world, and he saw organized religion, ritual, and superstition as obstacles to knowledge and progress. Kant was especially hostile to the idea that “pleasing God” was the way to moral rightness. He felt doing so was actually a huge distraction from focusing on actual, useful, sensible moral principles. One of Kant’s biggest contributions to the Enlightenment was an essay he wrote near the end of the period called “What is Enlightenment?” He said the lack of enlightenment came from people’s inability to think for themselves not because they lacked intelligence, but because they lacked courage. People have developed a reliance on others, especially the Church, to tell them what to think. “Enlightenment is man’s release from his self-imposed immaturity,” he said, in an attempt for humanity to find the courage to think for itself. Kant said that Sapere aude! (Dare to know!) should be the motto of the Enlightenment. And the first step in finding that daring is rejecting the terrible idea that dogmas should be accepted without question. Kant believed strongly that handing doctrines or beliefs from one generation to the next with firm instructions not to change or question them “prevent[s] all further enlightenment of mankind forever.” If they’re valid and worthwhile, ideas will be reaffirmed in each generation. If they’re false or unworthy, humanity can throw them out. Even within a single lifetime, Kant said, humanity must be willing to think freely and to criticize all ideas, including religious ones, so that only the best remain. That’s enlightenment. And when immaturity prevents such progress, Kant said, religion “is the most pernicious and dishonorable variety of all.” Not all of Kant is this clear, by the way.He had a reputation for being hard to read, using 35 words when three would do and German words at that. But “What is Enlightenment?” is a terrific, powerful piece, clear as a bell, and hugely influential. [/b] 3 Likes 4 Shares |
| Re: The Enlightenment by Nobody: 5:15pm On Aug 02, 2016 |
Meeting of minds in coffee houses and salons [b] Living in the Age of Enlightenment didn’t mean you had a license to blurt out your every thought in public. Plenty of ideas were still radical enough to get a person thrown in the Bastille or the Tower of London in the middle of the 18th Century. Blasphemy,for example, was still illegal just about everywhere. The definition of blasphemy was fuzzy enough to make anyone think twice before saying something off-center. France didn’t abolish its blasphemy laws until 1791. England was still merrily prosecuting for it into the 1840s. Discussing the shortcomings of the king was no wiser in the 18th century than it had been in the tenth. So where were those with radical or even revolutionary ideas to go? In London and Oxford, they went to the coffeehouses; in France, to the salons... TheEnglish coffeehouse culture of the 18th century offered a safe space for discussions of all kinds, including Enlightenment staples such as liberty, the natural rights of man, social progress, and religious doubt up to and including atheism. In France, wealthy intellectuals and socialites held salons in their homes to have lively conversation. The hosts invited the most interesting and provocative thinkers in town to these salons, and the best such events, like the twice-weekly meetings hosted by Baron d’Holbach, gathered great thinkers to present and develop great ideas. (D’Holbach was also famous for serving legendary spreads of food and wine, but I’m sure they came mostly for the conversation.) Whole social and intellectual movements were set in motion in the salons of Paris, and most historians credit the well-fed salon of d’Holbach with laying the foundation of the French Revolution. A lot of the regular visitors to d’Holbach’s salon were prominent atheists, including Denis Diderot. D’Holbach was an atheist and published several scathingly anti-religious books, including the hugely influential System of Nature But he did so under a false name, which made it possible for him to die of natural causes. [/b] 2 Likes 4 Shares |
| Re: The Enlightenment by Nobody: 5:18pm On Aug 02, 2016 |
Getting explicit in Paris: The incredible Encyclopédie [b] Think for a minute about the task Enlightenment thinkers had set for themselves. They wanted to strip the superstition out of human life and replace it with reason. That’s like trying to take the marinade out of a steak that’s been soaking for 5,000 years. Religion and superstition permeated humanity’s knowledge, habits, and even humanity’s understanding of itself. The atheist philosopher Denis Diderot (1713–1784) saw the persistence of religion and superstition as a big problem in realizing the ideals of the Enlightenment. In order to “change the way people think,” he set about the incredible task of creating a comprehensive reference book that would reframe all human knowledge in reasonable, rational terms, leaving religion and superstition on the cutting room floor. He called it simply the Encyclopédie 35 volumes with more than 75,000 articles by nearly a hundred contributors. (One contributor, Louis de Jaucourt, wrote more than 17,000 articles totaling nearly 5 million words.) Though it’s not on my bookshelf and probably isn’t on yours either, the Encyclopédie had an enormous influence on many of the books that are on those shelves, including some of the first arguments against slavery and in favor of basic human rights and freedoms. The set sold more than 25,000 copies. It laid some of the foundations for the French and American Revolutions. Most important of all was the concept itself the stunning idea of changing the lens through which humanity had come to see itself and the world. [/b] 4 Likes 3 Shares |
| Re: The Enlightenment by Nobody: 5:20pm On Aug 02, 2016 |
Challenging the Powers That Be: The French Revolution All the talk about challenging tradition and authority found a receptive audience in late 18th century France. The poor were kept poor with huge taxes, while Louis XVI and his nobles supported by those very same taxes paraded their wealth and privilege to ridiculous extremes. And standing at the head of the privilege parade was the First Estate the clergy of the Catholic Church. In addition to propping up the monarchy with the divine right of kings, the Church was the single largest landowner in France. So a lot of the taxes paid by tenant farmers went straight into the coffers of the Church, as did their tithes. So when the philosophers began filling the heads of the lower and middle classes with ideas about their natural rights to freedom and equality, little effort was required to connect the dots. The French Revolution wasn’t just a revolt against political power it was also a revolt against the power and ideas of the Catholic Church. 4 Likes 4 Shares |
| Re: The Enlightenment by Nobody: 7:00pm On Aug 02, 2016 |
i am beginning to think this is son of lucifer hiding under a new moniker,nice thread sha 2 Likes |
| Re: The Enlightenment by hahn(m): 7:45pm On Aug 02, 2016 |
stephenmorris: Same here  Op, I am interested in reading about how the African intellect was stomped by the introduction of the Abrahamic religions on our soil. I personally feel that our ignorance of the history of Islam and Christianity plays a huge role in the acceptance of these ideas by Africans. Plus the slavery that came with it. Someone should create a thread about it abeg. 3 Likes 1 Share |
| Re: The Enlightenment by Nobody: 7:46pm On Aug 02, 2016 |
Checking In on the US Founding Fathers [b] Many Christian commentators today claim that the United States is a Christian nation. The Founding Fathers would probably be shocked by this notion because they were plenty clear that it wasn’t anything of the sort. They’d seen what happened to Europe when religions insisted on their way 150 years of continuous war. Mother England herself had gone through a century of rolling heads as the Crown passed from Catholic to Protestant to Catholic to Protestant to Catholic to Protestant in little more than a century. You can see why there’d be very little interest in establishing a state religion in any way, shape, or form. When it came to religious identity, the founders themselves were quite a mixed bag. Among the signers of the US Constitution, for example, were 28 Anglicans 8 Presbyterians 7 Congregationalists 6 geesea laying 2 Dutch Reformed 2 Catholics 2 Methodists 2 Lutherans Then it gets even more mixed. Thomas Paine was a non-Christian Deist, Franklin was a Christian Deist, and historian Gregg Frazer classifies Washington, Jefferson, and Madison as “theistic rationalists.” Maybe it wasn’t an interfaith summit, but it was a pretty diverse bunch religiously. So it makes sense that they founded a country where the freedom of religion was guaranteed, up front, in the first amendment of the Bill of Rights. That means it wasn’t a Christian nation, but a nation in which citizens would be absolutely free to believe as they wished. The Constitution contains only one reference to religion and that was a specific ban on any religious requirement to hold office. God gets not a single mention in the whole Constitution. It’s the first time a nation was founded entirely on a social contract between humans without pretending God had signed off on it. This doesn’t make the document atheistic, and it doesn’t make the founders atheists. It just establishes a secular government, one that’s entirely neutral on questions of religion. American citizens of all persuasions should be grateful that the founders didn’t push their own beliefs on the country. People today may all imagine their own worldview would come out the winner, but given the variety of the Founders’ actual beliefs, it would have been like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates you never know what you’re gonna get. It’s much better that they left the decisions to each individual. [/b] 3 Likes 2 Shares |
| Re: The Enlightenment by Nobody: 7:51pm On Aug 02, 2016 |
Getting the message: The Treaty of Tripoli (1797) The Treaty of Tripoli between the United States and the Ottoman Empire was intended to end the boarding of US vessels by Barbary pirates. It’s mostly known today for one intriguing passage that says “the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion”. The purpose was to assure the Islamic Ottomans that no religious ideology would rear its head to annul any of the elements of the treaty. Whether that reassurance helped isn’t known the treaty fell apart five years later. But it stands today as one of the clearest early indications of the founders’ intent regarding religion and government. The people of the United States were then and are today predominantly religious. And thanks to a government that isn’t “in any sense” founded on any one religion, they’re free to pursue their belief (or disbelief) as they wish. It’s one of the most indelible remaining fingerprints of the Age of Enlightenment. 2 Likes 2 Shares |
| Re: The Enlightenment by Nobody: 11:01pm On Aug 02, 2016 |
......Enlighten me please 1 Like |
| Re: The Enlightenment by ValentineMary(m): 11:37pm On Aug 02, 2016 |
Lovely post OP. |
| Re: The Enlightenment by Pdizzle(m): 7:33am On Aug 03, 2016 |
hahn: I'm interested in that too. I'll see what i can get. This thread is really enlightening. 1 Like 1 Share |
| Re: The Enlightenment by Nobody: 9:05am On Aug 03, 2016 |
Space booked abeg.  |
| Re: The Enlightenment by johnydon22(m): 10:05am On Aug 03, 2016 |
Pdizzle:I have a thread on it, mention me when you put yours up https://www.nairaland.com/2854125/africa-foreign-religions-cultural-genocide |
| Re: The Enlightenment by Nobody: 12:04am On Aug 04, 2016 |
This Might be what the true ILLUMINATE Was All About Till Free Mason Fvcked It Up |
| Re: The Enlightenment by KingEbukaNaija: 12:22am On Aug 04, 2016 |
The source of these posts is "Atheism for Dummies " - nothing credible about it . Every atheist is booking space and wants to be "enlightened " without any concern for the veracity of whatever is being given to you . If it were miracles you would start asking questions and looking for photos and videos . Bunch of hypocrites . Only fools would allow these kind of people to deceive them . Rubbish . |
| Re: The Enlightenment by KingEbukaNaija: 12:40am On Aug 04, 2016 |
AmenRa1: Atheism is for dummies . The book's title is Atheism for dummies . Durrh !! . Joke's on you man . |
| Re: The Enlightenment by Nobody: 11:01pm On Aug 07, 2016 |
4 Likes 3 Shares
|
| Re: The Enlightenment by ValentineMary(m): 6:08pm On Aug 08, 2016 |
KingEbukaNaija:Ebuka don't expect everybody to be as ignorant as u are. This is basic history. Everyb good historian knows this. 2 Likes 1 Share |
To All Those Who Claim Evolution Doesn't Make Sense And It's Just A Theory / Bishop David Oyedepo On His Retirement / Top 19 Prophecies Of Apostle Suleman That Did Not Come To Pass
(Go Up)
| Sections: politics (1) business autos (1) jobs (1) career education (1) romance computers phones travel sports fashion health religion celebs tv-movies music-radio literature webmasters programming techmarket Links: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) Nairaland - Copyright © 2005 - 2024 Oluwaseun Osewa. All rights reserved. See How To Advertise. 73 |