Enlightening the Individual

Enlightening the Individual History has proved to us that what we know now is nothing compared to what lies ahead in the future. In Europe, the people thought that absolutism was the way of the world, but they were soon to discover that each individual has just as much power as the next. This new realization was coined the name the enlightenment. It led to the division of religion and the idea of a separated church and state. Religious division and political authority in Europe changed as a result between 1648 and 1789 because of individualism and the scientific revolution. Religious division changed immensely between 1648 and 1789 because of three main reasons. The first way that it changed was that the execution of faith separated from the king to the people. King Louis XIV previously executed all his power with an absolutism influence. The belief of the day was that kings were given the power and they were the “protector of the faith” and held more power than the Pope. With all of this control he could manipulate the church anyway he wanted. The people of the state were forced to practice Catholicism because that was the church of the land. Individualism was the key to dividing this power away from the king and giving it to the people. The people of Europe began to separate during the Protestant reformation but this was only the beginning. The Protestant Reformation gave the people the basic ideas that they needed to be able to divide their own beliefs from the churches but it still was not enough to fully divide the church as a whole. The enlightenment, however, made religion a personal decision that should not be trifled upon. The second way that religious division occurred was the new findings from the scientific revolution. Copernicus discovered how the planets revolved around the sun, which in turn, proved the godly holy universe incorrect. This idea had never even been thought of so it was hard for many people to believe what he said. Copernicus’