How Did The Scientific Revolution Affect Religion

The Scientific Revolution challenged traditional European values to a near-full extent because although the Enlightenment did teach people to use reason and showed them that the Church and its laws are dictatorial and unjust, the philosophes of the Enlightenment were inspired by the works of the Scientific Revolution, more importantly the Scientific Revolution started to challenge the church and its views and the scientists challenged the laws created by the Church. The discoveries made by the scientists of the Revolution challenged the foundations of the religious views revealed by the Church. The Church had answered all life questions, including the fact that God was the most important role in the universe and because of this people did

Prior to Copernicus’ theory, the Ptolemaic theory stated that the Earth is at the center and that the final sphere is heaven but the heliocentric conception theorized by Copernicus showed that the sun is at the center, the earth revolves around it and that there is no final sphere with God in it. This is very significant because it provided a whole new perspective towards the people and made them question as to what the human role is in the universe and the existence of God. Astronomers like Galileo Galilei and Giordano Bruno were inspired by Copernicus’ theory and they supported the Copernican system, which led them to further popularize and develop the idea. Giordano Bruno was a philosopher, who was attracted by unorthodox thoughts. In 1584, he published a book called De l’ Infinito, Universo e Mondi (On the Infinite Universe and Worlds), where he defends the heliocentric conception but rejects the limits portrayed in the system and tries to develop further more into the conception by stating that the universe is infinite and that there are inhabitants in other planets. It states, “Innumerable