# Was The Protestant Reformation Worth It? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 16, 2015, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-protestant-reformation-worth-it/725320 "2015-07-16T13:59:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-protestant-reformation-worth-it/725320/21 "2015-07-17T02:09:50Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > The corruption of the Catholic Church has been greatly exaggerated, generally by authors of polemics needing to create a major enemy. It’s possible. But the documented excesses of the Church hierarchy were so over-the-top horrible that the general impression most people have today understates how bad the Church had become. I present Exhibit 1: [Robert of Geneva](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antipope_Clement_VII). The Wikipedia link is dry and boring; it’s the little tidbits that give the events that extra _frisson_: After luring the citizens of Cesena into opening their gates by promising them the protection of the Holy Church, Robert drew his sword and uttered “_Sangue et sangue!_” (“Blood and more blood!”) and led his mercenaries into the city for several days of rape, plunder, arson, and murder. _Thousands_ of people were tortured, terrorized and killed. Apparently conducted deliberately to terrorize and humble the rising middle class into obeying (and paying taxes to) their “betters,” the “Bloodbath of Cesena” was infamous even in a rough age. The Italians never forgot; years later, when Robert was elected Pope. an elderly but popular Italian cardinal was propped up on a balcony while the College of Cardinals sent up the smoke signal, specifically to buy Robert time to flee Rome before his election became public knowledge. That kind of history doesn’t need to be exaggerated. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-protestant-reformation-worth-it/725320/22 "2015-07-17T02:54:23Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > It’s possible. But the documented excesses of the Church hierarchy were so over-the-top horrible that the general impression most people have today understates how bad the Church had become. There is, however, a difference between noting that the church included persons and incidents that were clearly beyond any hope of excuse and a claim that the church was in an unending spiral of utter corruption. There is no question that members of the church hierarchy have been among the worst humans to have infested the planet. However, it is equally true that between their reigns, others have held power who varied between mere politicians of varying qualities and leaders who truly attempted to promote goodness and justice. It is interesting that you cite (anti-)pope Clement VII–a man who was selected, not from the church, but by the civil authorities denying the church hierarchy’s authority and seeking to use the church’s authority to further their ends. Clearly he was a sign that the church was too political, (as it remained for several hundred more years), but his reign in Avignon led to efforts to reduce external political interference by assigning the papal election to the college of cardinals and other reforms. The reforms did not always hold, but there was not a direct and uninterrupted slide to infamy. ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-protestant-reformation-worth-it/725320/23 "2015-07-17T04:16:25Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > You can’t make a homily without breaking ecclesiae. Does that come with homily grits? ---
**Author:** ![lalaith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/96bed5/32.png) [@lalaith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lalaith)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-protestant-reformation-worth-it/725320/24 "2015-07-17T05:03:24Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > The end of Christian unity in the West is usually take as the time in which Martin Luther broke with the church of Rome. later, there came the Church of England, then tons of new sects. The Reformation resulted in hundreds of new variants of protestants, and many of the new sects promptly fractured into subsects (like the baptists). > Now, if one was completely opposed to the Church of Rome, I suppose that any breakaway would be good. But what was served by setting up hundreds of variants? In some sense then, was the whole thing worth it, or not? Yes. Yes. Yes. A thousand times yes. Because I honestly believe that without the Reformation I wouldn’t have the freedom today to be an agnostic — certainly not as publicly agnostic as I am. And without the freedom of religious thought that the Reformation brought, I’m not sure I’d be an agnostic privately. I might be too brainwashed. As I say in [one of my Notebooks,](http://maggieameanderings.com/2012-Apr-8.htm)“The state of religious freedom in the U.S. has less to do with mutual religious tolerance than it does mutual religious intolerance…with each favoring their own. Don’t believe me? Then ask someone advocating for organized prayer to be a part of public schools how he would feel if the prayer his child was required to say was “God is Great” phrased “Allāhu Akbar.” Then stand back and wait for the fireworks.” But, yeah, I also say [in another Notebook](http://maggieameanderings.com/2013-Aug-11.htm), “The Catholic Church made a fundamental mistake centuries ago in involving itself in power and wealth. Because, after that, among the people who were attracted to the hierarchy of the church were people attracted not by the proverbial “mission of Jesus Christ” but attracted to that power and wealth. And they became invested in setting up an institution designed to maintain that power and wealth. Thus began the Catholic Church’s long downward spiral. A descent it is only beginning to climb out of now that it’s lost most of that power and much of that wealth. (Though the Vatican still has too much of both for its own good.) ----------- So it’s unfortunate that other churches have failed to learn from the Catholic Church’s mistake. Instead, they end up following in its footsteps.” ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-protestant-reformation-worth-it/725320/25 "2015-07-17T05:05:08Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > The end of Christian unity in the West is usually take as the time in which Martin Luther broke with the church of Rome. later, there came the Church of England, then tons of new sects. The Reformation resulted in hundreds of new variants of protestants, and many of the new sects promptly fractured into subsects (like the baptists). > Now, if one was completely opposed to the Church of Rome, I suppose that any breakaway would be good. But what was served by setting up hundreds of variants? In some sense then, was the whole thing worth it, or not? We have reached a state where in the Americas, Europe, much of Africa and Asia, and Australia, all persons are free to practice the religion of their choice. Infringements on that freedom, though regrettable are minor. From a Christian perspective, this is ideal. Before the Reformation, in western Europe, that wasn’t quite true. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-protestant-reformation-worth-it/725320/26 "2015-07-17T05:06:04Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Yes, it was worth it, though for no reasons Martin Luther intended nor could have imagined: No Protestant Reformation, no Scientific Revolution. On the other hand, no Scientific Revolution no atomic bomb; climate change, mass extinctions; Holocaust; etc. Its all a mixed bag. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-protestant-reformation-worth-it/725320/27 "2015-07-17T05:20:11Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Yes, it was worth it, though for no reasons Martin Luther intended nor could have imagined: No Protestant Reformation, no Scientific Revolution. What’s your reasoning behind this claim? In 1516, the year before the posting of the 95 theses, Catholic Europe was surely the most advanced place on earth in terms of science and technology. In the century after the reformation, there’s little evidence of Protestants outpacing Catholics in scientific and technological discoveries. For example, Isaac Newton is often credited with inventing the reflecting telescope, but an Italian Catholic priest named Niccolo Zucchi built a crude one in the early 17th century. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-protestant-reformation-worth-it/725320/28 "2015-07-17T05:24:04Z")
**madsircool** : All of those things would have happened eventually, and it is easy to see ways where they might have gone a lot worse. The first nuclear war might have involved a trade of several dozen weapons, rather than only two. And the Nazis might have gotten them first… Certainly, it’s also possible to see ways where history could have gone better. (Any Panglossians here? Although Pangloss was a caricature of Leibniz, who had a slightly more sophisticated way of suggesting this was the best of all possible worlds.) The Catholic Church chose a very wonderful dogmatic position in its early years: that physical reality was a form of “revelation.” Thus, science was not only permitted, but sanctified. (Although some of its results were accepted only reluctantly.) Some Protestant denominations have back-pedaled from this doctrine, and actually hold that if a real-world observation contradicts scriptures (per their interpretation) then “reality” must be wrong, because the scriptures cannot be wrong. The Catholics, bless 'em, rejected that idea. ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-protestant-reformation-worth-it/725320/29 "2015-07-17T05:49:21Z")
Modern science, or the Scientific Method, began in the monasteries of the High Middle Ages, particularly in the Little Renaissance of the 12th century. > [@lalaith](#): > > But, yeah, I also say [in another Notebook](http://maggieameanderings.com/2013-Aug-11.htm), "The Catholic Church made a fundamental mistake centuries ago in involving itself in power and wealth. Frederick II, HRE, _Stupor Mundi_, in the course of his long struggle with scoundrelly Popes, came to the realization that the Church would be purer and more true to itself if devoted to a lack of wealth and worldly power. This was not entirely due to the advantage this would given him in the contest: he remained a christian despite their treatment of him, and how they would supplant his descendants — his contemporary, Francis of Assisi came to the same conclusion. Francis’ vision was equally subverted by the venal Church when they permitted his successors to ignore the Order’s devotion to holy poverty. On the other hand, without their rapacity, we wouldn’t have a heritage of some of the most magnificent art ever produced. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 9:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-protestant-reformation-worth-it/725320/30 "2015-07-17T09:57:03Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > **madsircool** : All of those things would have happened eventually, and it is easy to see ways where they might have gone a lot worse. > > The first nuclear war might have involved a trade of several dozen weapons, rather than only two. And the Nazis might have gotten them first… > > Certainly, it’s also possible to see ways where history could have gone better. (Any Panglossians here? Although Pangloss was a caricature of Leibniz, who had a slightly more sophisticated way of suggesting this was the best of all possible worlds.) > > The Catholic Church chose a very wonderful dogmatic position in its early years: that physical reality was a form of “revelation.” Thus, science was not only permitted, but sanctified. (Although some of its results were accepted only reluctantly.) Some Protestant denominations have back-pedaled from this doctrine, and actually hold that if a real-world observation contradicts scriptures (per their interpretation) then “reality” must be wrong, because the scriptures cannot be wrong. The Catholics, bless 'em, rejected that idea. I dont believe that they would have happened eventually. Were it not for WWII and the fear of Hitler no government would have poured the boatload of money and no allstar team of brainiacs would have been gathered to develop the bomb. Also, no one was quite sure what would happen when the atom was first split. History also doesnt always progress…an easy example is Europe at the decline and fall of Rome. China after the Ming. NBC after Leno :p. ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a8b319/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_wuzzy)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-protestant-reformation-worth-it/725320/31 "2015-07-17T10:04:22Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > What’s your reasoning behind this claim? In 1516, the year before the posting of the 95 theses, Catholic Europe was surely the most advanced place on earth in terms of science and technology. In the century after the reformation, there’s little evidence of Protestants outpacing Catholics in scientific and technological discoveries. For example, Isaac Newton is often credited with inventing the reflecting telescope, but an Italian Catholic priest named Niccolo Zucchi built a crude one in the early 17th century. Limiting your time frame to the century afterwards is a bit sleight of hand on your part. These things take time. I do not know if anything within Protestantism contributed to the scientific revolution. That is something for individuals with far more knowledge of religion than I do to conclude. However, the willingness of Protestantism to encourage its followers to read scripture directly must surely be some sort of contribution to the spread of knowledge - whether this knowledge be good or bad, religious or scientific. I realise this spread of knowledge is also inextricably linked to the invention of the printing press. But the ability of the great unwashed to read is also an ideological issue. An issue that Protestantism embraced. ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-protestant-reformation-worth-it/725320/32 "2015-07-17T14:15:31Z")
> [@dracoi](#): > > I think you’re overestimating the unity in the church. It was certainly dis-united in the period during which the New Testament was written. I suppose you could say that it re-united somewhere in the 300s… but by the time of Reformation, it was already dis-united again. Thanks, I certainly didn’t mean to. Even the apostles fought among themselves, before and after the resurrection. Unity within the church was always an aspiration and not a reality. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-protestant-reformation-worth-it/725320/33 "2015-07-17T14:18:03Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > What’s your reasoning behind this claim? In 1516, the year before the posting of the 95 theses, Catholic Europe was surely the most advanced place on earth in terms of science and technology. In the century after the reformation, there’s little evidence of Protestants outpacing Catholics in scientific and technological discoveries. For example, Isaac Newton is often credited with inventing the reflecting telescope, but an Italian Catholic priest named Niccolo Zucchi built a crude one in the early 17th century. Because science depends not merely on intellectual effort but on intellectual freedom, something the Protestant countries had much more of. Read [_Infinitesimal: How a Dangerous Mathematical Theory Shaped the Modern World,_](http://www.amazon.com/Infinitesimal-Dangerous-Mathematical-Theory-Shaped/dp/0374534993/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1437142587&sr=1-1&keywords=infinitesimal) for an account of how the Jesuits shut down all discussion in the Catholic world of the mathematical theory of indivisibles, indispensable to the development of calculus and a great deal else; which is why it was ultimately an Englishman and a German who discovered calculus. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-protestant-reformation-worth-it/725320/34 "2015-07-17T16:01:57Z")
Speaking as a Catholic… I think the Reformation’s results were mostly negative. But how can anyone argue that the Church didn’t make the Reformation both necessary and inevitable? ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-protestant-reformation-worth-it/725320/35 "2015-07-17T16:40:32Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > On the other hand, no Scientific Revolution no atomic bomb; climate change, mass extinctions; Holocaust; etc. Its all a mixed bag. It’d also mean an average life expectancy in the late 20s or mid 30s, 1 out of 2 children dead before the age of 5, famines regularly ravaging large populations etc. :dubious::rolleyes: Unless you are some sort of a bizarre primitivist, there can be no dispute the world is better off with the Scientific Revolution than without. Not to mention that mass extinctions began with the advent of humanity not industrialization, that genocide and mass murder were quite common in the annals of ancient and mediaeval history, and so forth. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-protestant-reformation-worth-it/725320/36 "2015-07-17T16:58:28Z")
> [@Skammer](#): > > Thanks, I certainly didn’t mean to. Even the apostles fought among themselves, before and after the resurrection. Unity within the church was always an aspiration and not a reality. “Follow the Shoeites!” “Follow the way of the Sandalites!” “Come! All you who call yourselves Gourdenes!” ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-protestant-reformation-worth-it/725320/37 "2015-07-17T17:29:05Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > It’d also mean an average life expectancy in the late 20s or mid 30s, 1 out of 2 children dead before the age of 5, famines regularly ravaging large populations etc. :dubious::rolleyes: Unless you are some sort of a bizarre primitivist, there can be no dispute the world is better off with the Scientific Revolution than without. Not to mention that mass extinctions began with the advent of humanity not industrialization, that genocide and mass murder were quite common in the annals of ancient and mediaeval history, and so forth. We are better off; not the world. Its indisputable. We homo sapiens have been on the planet barely a blip on the clock and the industrial revolution a blip within a blip and we are this close to destroying most of the more sentient life from it. It can happen quickly through nuclear or biological warfare or slowly through pollution and over-populatuon resource depletion, a planet wide Easter Island. Im happy to be living now but mother nature is crying because our happiness has come at her rape. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-protestant-reformation-worth-it/725320/38 "2015-07-17T17:32:26Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > No Protestant Reformation, no Scientific Revolution. Says who? ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-protestant-reformation-worth-it/725320/39 "2015-07-17T17:38:46Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Says who? I agree with BG. Many of the advances of the SR were driven by unfettered free enterprise and no religious/government restriction on research. Remember Galeleo? I suppose some form of it could have happened but where? And how? ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-protestant-reformation-worth-it/725320/40 "2015-07-17T17:41:43Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Papal supremacy was pretty moribund by the time that Luther came around. The Church was still recovering from the Avignon Papacy, where the popes were, in effect, controlled by the French Kings, and the schism between multiple popes both claiming to be legitimate, and while popes like Alexander VI and Julius II was certainly effective as temporal rulers over the Papal States, that very success and the things they needed to do to achieve it weakened the moral authority of the papacy. More and more, the Pope was being seen as just another secular ruler with secular interests rather than as the leader of Christianity. > > It was this very weakness that led to the success of the Reformation. Secular rulers supported the Protestants or not on grounds of realpolitik. So, for instance, one of the motivations of the Schmalkaldic League was to try to check the power of Charles V. An Charles V both persecuted the Protestants to try to strengthen Imperial authority in Germany while, at the same time, fighting wars against the Papacy as a way to gain influence and weaken French influence in Italy. Indeed. One main boost to the Reformation was purely secular concerns on the part of specific rulers. The notion of over-mighty Popes is a bit of an anachronism. To provide a specific example, if somewhat late in the Reformation: the success of the Reformation in England was a direct result of Papal weakness, not over-mighty strength. How? As everyone knows, the turning point came when Henry VIII needed an annulment, wrote to the Pope to get one - and was refused. This pissed Henry off. Why did the Pope piss Henry off? Because he was under the thumb of the Emperor - whose relation was Henry’s wife, and who did not support an annulment. The Pope did not dare offend the Emperor, who at one point saw his armies famously sacking the ‘holy city’ of Rome while the Pope cowered in his fortress … so it was the Pope’s weakness vs. the Emperor that saw him annoy Henry (having no choice), leading to the success of the Reformation in England (which the Pope could do nothing to prevent). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-protestant-reformation-worth-it/725320.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-protestant-reformation-worth-it/725320.md?page=3)