Science and Enlightenment
The scientific revolution was becoming well known and expanding. With that being said a new idea started, Enlightenment. Immanuel Kant asked "What is Enlightenment?" Which he then states "It is man's emergence from his self-imposed...inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance...Dare to Know! 'Have the courage to use your own understanding' is therefore the motto of the enlightenment"(Pg.671). They believed that knowledge is what's going to change human society. They "shared a satirical, critical style, a commitment to open mindedness and inquiry, and in various degrees a hostility to established political and religious authority. Many took aim at arbitrary governments, the "the divine right of kings," and the aristocratic privileges of European society"(Pg.671).
With that being said "Treatise of Three Imposters, which claimed that Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad were fraudulent impostors who based their teachings on "the ignorance of Peoples [and] resolved to keep them in it" (Pg.672).
The main theme of Enlightenment was "the idea of progress" (Pg.673). They believe that progress was a "sharp departure from much of premodern social thinking, and it inspired those who later made the great revolutions of the modern era in the Americas, France, Russia, China, and elsewhere" (Pg.673).
I have to say, the Treatise of Three Imposters gave me a lot to think about. I don't practice any Abrahamic religions, but it still gave me a big what if moment. If the intent of Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad were to keep people in their ignorance but it resulted in arguably beautiful teachings about how to treat your fellow man, would it really even matter? Regardless of that, I felt like the general conflict between the church and the scientific realm seemed oddly reminiscent of what is happening in America.
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