Chapter 15

The west had a rich heritage of Greek and Roman logic, science, engineering, literature, individualism, and democracy.  

Plato, Aristotle, Pericles, Cicero, and Julius Caesar represented parts of this heritage.

Christianity had a core of individualism, optimism, self worth, human dignity, and "God on our side"

Medieval Europe (476 - 1400) had an infrastructure of law  and self-government

16th century that forced a new outlook on life belief, geography, economic competition, and technological pressure (shipping, banking, agriculture, accounting

the central theme of the Enlightenment the scientific revolution and its meaning for human society, was the Idea of Progress,

 the fact that society could change and "was not fixed by tradition or divine command."

 For many the Idea of Progress was "virtually a new religion"

.  What did Religion and Science do for Europe?  

                 a.  Religion gave the West the optimism to build a "Brave New World". 
                 b.  Science gave it the methodology and knowledge to explore and conquer the heavens and the earth and to develop the technology to create the Industrial Revolution and the atomic bomb