The Impact of Scientific Developments

Religious Studies: KS3, topic 2.5.2

The continued development of science led to more doubt of some religious beliefs and myths.

This change can be understood as an example of human intellectual development.
Humans started to think more carefully about the world around them. They wanted better explanations for the things they experienced.
Many religious believers, for example, had believed that the earth was at the centre of the universe. This belief existed simply because that's the way it's described in the Book of Genesis - the earth and humans were at the centre of God’s creation.

Pythagoras was a Greek thinker who studied the movement of the planets.
Pythagoras proposed a heliocentric theory. This means that the Sun was at the centre and the earth revolved around it.
This form of atheism is best understood as a rejection of some incorrect religious beliefs.
It argues that these religious beliefs existed because of a limited understanding of the natural world.
This growing commitment to scientific discovery began to cast doubt on religious ideas.

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