2points
how did the protestant reformation affect religion in western europe
beginning in the 16th century?
o
a. it promoted the idea of secularism within the roman catholic
church.
b. it allowed the roman catholic church to adopt some of islam's
important practices.
o
c. it decreased the roman catholic church's power and authority.
o
d. it caused a split between roman catholics and eastern orthodox
christians.

C.

Explanation: The Catholic Church, prior to the Reformation, had power and control over just about anything because of the social construct of the people there at the time. Back then what the Pope says, goes--or else. He was basically the Kim Jung-Un of their time.

The Pope along with the people of the church were at the highest section of the social hierarchy of the Ancient Roman Empire, with the Kings following closely behind. Why was this? There was a common concept the kings used to claims their right to power: The "Divine Right of Kings." This basically stated the whoever the king is at the time is so because they were chosen by god. The Pope, however, was received as the closest person to God and therefore had more power than the Kings did because of that. Everyone else was lower than them and had little to no power at all especially in comparison to the Church and the King.

from thales, who is often considered the first western philosopher, to the stoics and skeptics, ancient greek philosophy opened the doors to a particular way of thinking that provided the roots for the western intellectual tradition. here, there is often an explicit preference for the life of reason and rational thought. we find proto-scientific explanations of the natural world in the milesian thinkers, and we hear democritus posit atoms—indivisible and invisible units—as the basic stuff of all matter. with socrates comes a sustained inquiry into ethical matters—an orientation towards human living and the best life for human beings. with plato comes one of the most creative and flexible ways of doing philosophy, which some have since attempted to imitate by writing philosophical dialogues covering topics still of interest today in ethics, political thought, metaphysics, and epistemology. plato’s student, aristotle, was one of the most prolific of ancient authors. he wrote treatises on each of these topics, as well as on the investigation of the natural world, including the composition of animals. the hellenists—epicurus, the cynics, the stoics, and the skeptics—developed schools or movements devoted to distinct philosophical lifestyles, each with reason at its foundation.

with this preference for reason came a critique of traditional ways of living, believing, and thinking, which sometimes caused political trouble for the philosophers themselves. xenophanes directly challenged the traditional anthropomorphic depiction of the gods, and socrates was put to death for allegedly inventing new gods and not believing in the gods mandated by the city of athens. after the fall of alexander the great, and because of aristotle’s ties with alexander and his court, aristotle escaped the same fate as socrates by fleeing athens. epicurus, like xenophanes, claimed that the mass of people is impious, since the people conceive of the gods as little more than superhumans, even though human characteristics cannot appropriately be ascribed to the gods. in short, not only did ancient greek philosophy pave the way for the western intellectual tradition, including modern science, but it also shook cultural foundations in its own time.