The French Revolution

Explain some of the causes of The French Revolution. What were the three estates and why did the third estate feel used? How did the Enlightenment thinkers influence the French Revolution? What really triggered the revolution, what happened on July 14, 1789?

Causes Of the Revolution

The reasons why the French revolution started was because of the unjust spread of power among the people. There were political and social inequalities. During the 18th century, the French practiced feudalism. The main problem was that nobles and people of the clergy, always had special privileges. They didn't pay taxes, while common people didn't have freedom in politics, and unlike nobles, payed heavy taxes. In the states general, the nobles and clergy made up the fist and second estates, while the rest (common people) made up the third estate.Nobles and people of the clergy could outvote all common people though the Estates General was not always called by the king, who ruled as a monarch. The common people became angry with the privileged class. Which triggered the French Revolution. These people were also inspired by the people of the enlightment,who brought out doubt and question amoung the french. People began to question there ruler, which caused them to rebbel. The storming of the bastille occured on july 14, 1789. The storming of the bastile is seen as a symbol of the upbringing of the new modern france.

Copernicus and the trial of Galileo

At a time back then, when the Roman Catholic church had absolute power, the theory of the planets and the universe was called geocentrism. Geocentrism is a theory which states that the universe revolves around the sun and was developed by Potolmy. The people of the church as well as its citizens believed in this theory. Copernicus developed a theory called Heliocentrism. This theory states that the planet is not the center of the world. In fact it states that the sun is the center of the universe and all the planets including the Earth rotate around the sun. Today this is the most widely believed theory. Galileo who invented the telescope also believed this theory. As this theory increased in popularity among the people, the Roman Catholic Church began to worry and decided to take a stand. Galileo was a person who represented power, do to his controversial experiments which showed Aristotle's theory's to be wrong. On,June 22, 1633 Galileo was taken into trial and was forced to kneel and admit to being wrong. He also had to state that he opposed Copernicus, all of this on top of a life sentence. The amount of unjust actions done by the Catholic Church to this man are incomparable. It was not until year of 1992 that the Roman Catholic Church formally admitted to having committed a huge error on Galileo.

Scientific Revolution; Scientific Method

The scientific Revolution was a reaction against a medieval Aristotelian model of scientific explanation.

The scientific Revolution was something that interested many people because it challenged outdated ideas. The scientific method consists of four steps.
1. Theory
2. Hypothesis
3. Use of hypothesis to predict results.
4. Preform experiment

Before the 1500 many people widely accepted Aristotle's theory's. When the scientific revolution occur ed it challenged many peoples ideas and thoughts. Galileo used the scientific method to challenge older theories. He tested two objects in different amounts of weight. He was able to prove that objects of different weights do fall at the same time. If it wasn't for Galileo who along with other scientists challenged the theory's of then, maybe today we would still be following the wrong theories. The scientific method provides organization for scientists conducting experiments, the end result is a better chance of the results being correct. It lets you separate facts, theory's, and guesses from what is actually true.

With out the scientific method, many things known today probably wouldn't even be discovered yet. People of today have been able to advance and better themselves, technology wise as well, thanks to the scientific method.

Evolution vs. Creation

Evolution:

This theory states that every organism that exists today is a descendant or related to a past animal or organism that has evolved into what it is today. Organisms or animals of the past adapt to the environment. When these animals reproduce, the new organism is born with a certain mutation. These mutations pass on to other generations and after a while result in a whole new type of species. For example animals like giraffes are believed to have been a species of horses which over time evolved and grew longer necks because of their environment, which often didn't have grass. These horses would stretch their necks to reach leaves from trees above, which caused their necks to grow. This theory of evolution is favored by most scientists. Because unlike Creationism, which doesn't consist of much evidence to back up the theory, the theory of Evolution has advanced thanks to molecular biology and other advances in technology. Also old fossils which add proof that the human species along with other organisms evolved over a period of time.

Creationism:

Creationism is the belief that all organisms of today were created by "God" (often the god referred to by religions such as Christianity, Judaism and Islam), in there original form and didn't go through any type of evolution process. Creationism sometimes has a wide range of interpretations or beliefs, that are generally the same. Creationism originated between the 18th and 19th centuries. The primary source is considered to be an ancient Hebrew text describing Creationism, according to Genesis. Creationism was unquestioned during the middle age. People were very religious and never questioned this or doubted this theory.

Up until the 1960's the theory of evolution was unspoken of and not heard of by many. The theory of evolution was cleared from text books around the United States and Creationism was excepted as a worldwide theory. Over time creationism has expanded, into several different versions, such as...

Flat Earth creationism: which states that God created the world with a flat surface 6,000 years ago. (Very few people today believe in this theory.)

Modern geocentrism: Says that God recently created a spherical world and placed it in the center of the universe. The sun planets and other things all revolve around it.

Young-Earth Creationism: This belief is normally held by Christians and Jews worldwide. And beliefs in the literal truth of Genesis. This type of theory also states by religions that the earth was created in 6 days about 6,000 years ago.