During the scientific revolution, there was a shift in thinking about nature from a religious perspective to an intellectual perspective. The Roman Catholic Church enforced that the Earth was the center of the universe and the other planets and the sun revolved around it in a perfect circle. Galileo challenged the church’s idea of perfectness and the idea of the Earth being the center of the universe. The church also enforced that God and the church should be the center of everyone’s lives, and Rembrandt challenges this idea through his painting, Raising of the Cross.
In Galileo’s Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, Galileo represents the pope as Simplicio, the fool, to reference to the church’s beliefs. Simplicio represents the church and talks about the views with great confidence and appears firm on his beliefs, just like the Roman Catholic Church. The confidence in his speech proves that the church was not open to new ideas, and Galileo uses the pope to convey the message that the church already had a preset idea of what was right and wrong. This sense of opposing straightforwardness is also addressed in Rembrandt’s painting. Instead of using linearity and straight lines, that allow the viewer to find a definite contrast between the background and the subject, Rembrandt uses painterly lines that appear to blend in with the background causing the painting to appear obscure and ambiguous. This blending of subjects with background emphasizes that even though the church pretends to have all the answers, no one can truly have all of the answers and there will always be a sense of uncertainty.
In the Dialogue, Simplicio says, “Now when we see this beautiful order among the planets, they being arranged around the ear...
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...ch makes them imperfect. Through Rembrandt and Galileo, it can be concluded that there is shift to this new idea of change being beneficial.
While there were people like Galileo and Rembrandt who wanted to move past traditional ideas, many religious and intellectual scholars found the idea of new science as threatening because of the undesirable challenges it results in the installed traditions. Since these people remained quite, the church continued to control their beliefs, and remained powerful for a longer time.
Works Cited
Galilei, Galileo. “Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems.” Trans. Drake Stillman. Ed. James Bowley, et. al. Heritage Reader. Jackson,
Mississippi: Millsaps College and Copyright Clearance Center, 2014. 10-11.
Rembrandt, Harmenszoon van Rijn, 1606-1660. “Raising Of The Cross.”
ARTstor Digital Library. Web. 15 Feb. 2014
During the Scientific Revolution, the struggle between faith and reason was exhibited through Galileo and his discoveries. The Catholic Church during the time period of the Scientific Revolution did not approve of any outside scientists who came up with new theories and observations. The Church believed that all information about how the world worked was in the bible and that was the only right source. In an excerpt from “What is Scientific Authority?” written by Galileo in 1615, it states, “Showing a greater fondness for their [Catholic Church’s] own opinions than for truth, they sought to deny & disprove the new things which, if they had cared to look for themselves, their own senses would have demonstrated to them…” Galileo Galilei himself knew that the Church was not willing to approve of new ideas from other scientists, but only from the teachings in the Bible. Later on in the excerpt, Galileo writes, “They [Catholic Church] hurled various charges &…made the grave mistake of sprinkling these with passages taken from places in the Bible which they had failed to understand properl...
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Another Magnificent piece of artwork is Leonardo's sketch of a man within a circle. Vitruvius adding a quote to the piece later on, "man in his perfect proportions, is the center of all things", suggests that this piece was influenced by humanism. We say this because the piece portrays a mere man as the center instead of what the catholics may haved placed, that which god would be in the center of the circle. Catholics, Priests, and church officials alike would not approve of this irrational idea and the sketch itself.
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The Scientific revolution in the 16th and 17th centuries changed the way that people views the world. Scientific philosophers such as Galileo and Descartes threw out the old teachings of the church and challenged them with new ways of thinking. These men sought to prove that rational thought could prove the existence of God. They also challenged that it was an understanding of a series of rational thoughts, not faith, would bring understanding of how the world worked. Traditional ways of thinking were ultimately challenged by logical and sensible rationale.
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message; to think that even a character as strong and sure as Galileo can be altered and
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As Europe began to move out of the Renaissance, it brought with it many of the beliefs of that era. The continent now carried a questioning spirit and was eager for more to study and learn. Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, many discoveries were made in subjects all across the realm of science, but it was the doubting and testing of old traditions and authorities that truly made this time into a revolution. The Scientific Revolution challenged the authority of the past by changing the view of nature from a mysterious entity to a study of mathematics, looking to scientific research instead of the Church, and teaching that there was much knowledge of science left to be discovered.
...pted by people of the Late Middle Ages. More importantly, it brought out the idea that the Bible could not be interpreted for science, instead, people were to experiment or observe for themselves. The strongly supported heliocentric theory no refuted the favorable idea of humanity being in the center. The Scientific Revolution revealed the fact that the sun was in the universe, at the same time, it encouraged people to become innovators, thinkers, and experimenters instead of being dependent on theology. The Scientific Revolution was a big step forward for humanity. It showed that everyone was capable of thinking logically. In our society today, people can freely debate, read, and discover for themselves. Without the Scientific Revolution, the modernization of science may have been delayed, and our present ideas of the universe and humanity may have been different.
René Descartes presented his readers to the thought of differentiating scholarly learning from church doctrine. He asserted science filled with myth and uncertainty could never advertise taking in or the headway of public opinion. Descartes reacted to the developing clash between these two powers with an endeavor to bring clarity. He was eager to test the acknowledged plans of his day and present change. Religion had not been independent from science previou...