# 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:** 3
**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, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-protestant-reformation-worth-it/725320/41 "2015-07-17T17:54:36Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > 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? I don’t get why Galileo - who did his pioneering work while being a good Catholic and was, in point of fact, best buddies with the Pope until they had their falling-out - demonstrates Protestantism is necessary for science. It is true that his buddy famously turned on him and forced him into a humiliating recantation, but a goodly part of the reason for that was that Galileo went too far in his publication - not scientifically, but in terms of poking nasty fun at the Pope personally (he had a character in his famous book who was apparently modeled on the Pope and named him something like “simpleton” only in Latin). The Pope was not amused. This is basically no different from anywhere else in Europe - Protestant nobles and rulers were not noted for allowing total freedom to poke fun at them at the time, either. ---
**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, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-protestant-reformation-worth-it/725320/42 "2015-07-17T17:55:01Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Says who? See post #33. ---
**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, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-protestant-reformation-worth-it/725320/43 "2015-07-17T17:57:39Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > This is basically no different from anywhere else in Europe - Protestant nobles and rulers were not noted for allowing total freedom to poke fun at them at the time, either. But, intellectuals could generally get away with more in Protestant countries – or, if facing suppression, could sometimes move from one Protestant country to another – because the Protestant world had no monolithic universal institution, analogous to the Inquisition or the Jesuits, empowered to enforce intellectual conformity/orthodoxy. ---
**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, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-protestant-reformation-worth-it/725320/44 "2015-07-17T18:04:18Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > 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. The “why” is at least as interesting as the “how,” BTW: The Jesuits considered philosophy a perfect, complete, closed system, built up step by flawless step from Euclidean geometry among other things, producing a body of absolutely certain knowledge – which dovetailed perfectly with their vision of an authoritarian Church having all the answers. Thomas Hobbes, fiercely anti-Catholic but also in his own way an absolute (statist) authoritarian, opposed the theory of indivisibles for exactly the same reasons. But that whole intellectual world-view is completely inimical to the scientific enterprise and the scientific method. ---
**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, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-protestant-reformation-worth-it/725320/45 "2015-07-17T21:18:48Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > 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. Well, yes, if scientific research came to a halt entirely, in a hideous interregnum, a dark ages of thought, then, certainly, nuclear weapons would not have been developed. But if basic physics was allowed to progress, then radioactivity would be understood from the instability of some nuclei, the chain reaction would have been discovered, someone would have built the first reactor, people would have seen the potential for electric power generation… And, alas, some few would have understand how it could be weaponized. Governments might not have gone for a full-moose crash-program like the Manhattan Project…but they would always have been spending a little on weaponizing fission. Then, one day – maybe a century later than in our timeline, but eventually, some government would have exploded a test bomb. Thinking otherwise is as wrong as imagining that the Wright Brothers could have developed aircraft, but that planes never would have been used to fight wars. That just isn’t how human nature works. ---
**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, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-protestant-reformation-worth-it/725320/46 "2015-07-17T22:35:04Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > I don’t really know that that’s a good comparison. In his foreword to the autobiography of a once famous, but now mostly forgotten, British spy for the Soviet Union, Kim Philby, his friend and ex-colleague in SIS, the once famous, but now mostly forgotten, British Author Graham Greene, made this comparison of the pro-soviet ‘traitors’ ( Burgess & Maclean, etc. in a cast of thousands ) to those catholics who served the Church in the 16th/17th centuries against the interests of the then rulers, who hoped the USSR would eventually after many centuries produce a John XXIII instead of the Roderigo Borjas of yore. John XXIII would have been very popular back then. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-protestant-reformation-worth-it/725320/47 "2015-07-17T22:51:58Z")
> [@Skammer](#): > > It was one of Jesus’ final prayers before his crucifixion that his followers would remain united. Really? He himself foretold the splintering of the church in the [Parable of the Sower](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+8): all of his apostles went on to preach, but not all were successful. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-protestant-reformation-worth-it/725320/48 "2015-07-17T23:06:12Z")
> [@Claverhouse](#): > > In his foreword to the autobiography of a once famous, but now mostly forgotten, British spy for the Soviet Union, Kim Philby, his friend and ex-colleague in SIS, the once famous, but now mostly forgotten, British Author Graham Greene, made this comparison of the pro-soviet ‘traitors’ ( Burgess & Maclean, etc. in a cast of thousands ) to those catholics who served the Church in the 16th/17th centuries against the interests of the then rulers, who hoped the USSR would eventually after many centuries produce a John XXIII instead of the Roderigo Borjas of yore. I’m familiar with both Graham Greene and Kim Philby, but I still find the comparison facile. And it’s less than you’re making it out to be…Greene’s just saying that, like those English Catholics who participated in plots against Queen Elizabeth, Philby let his ideological fanaticism lead him to treason, and like well meaning Renaissance Catholics, Philby is willing to overlook the evils and mistakes of the leaders for the promise of some future better world. Besides, I’m not entirely convinced the existence of the Church as a counterweight in the middle ages was a bad thing. It was a check against royal power and a counter to royal abuses (although obviously not the only one). ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-protestant-reformation-worth-it/725320/49 "2015-07-17T23:07:34Z")
I don’t think the phrase ‘worth it’ is relevant. In A March of Folly, Barbara Tuchman lays out the case it was predicted but yet unstoppable for a vast array of reasons. It was just short of inevitable. ---
**Author:** ![P-man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/p-man/32/3606_2.png) [@P-man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/P-man)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2015, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-protestant-reformation-worth-it/725320/50 "2015-07-18T00:39:54Z")
I remember hearing a minister (Lutheran) say that he believed it was good that no Xian sect became too numerous, because that tended to lead to persecution. Of course this was the same guy who said spending money on fancy church buildings when people are starving is an insult to God. ---
**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 18, 2015, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-protestant-reformation-worth-it/725320/51 "2015-07-18T17:23:48Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > 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. Well, he was elected Pope, not Anti-Pope. That label was applied by people trying to distance the church from his actions. And he was elected by Cardinals, not civil authorities. If your point is that the authority of the church could be _bought_ by the civil authorities, that’s hardly evidence that the Reformation wasn’t necessary. I’m not a Catholic-hater. I just wanted to point out that even if exaggerated things have been said about the superorganism in question, there are perfectly true historical things in its past that are eye-openingly horrible. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2015, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-protestant-reformation-worth-it/725320/52 "2015-07-18T17:48:12Z")
> [@P-man](#): > > I remember hearing a minister (Lutheran) say that he believed it was good that no Xian sect became too numerous, because that tended to lead to persecution. Of course this was the same guy who said spending money on fancy church buildings when people are starving is an insult to God. He has a point, though. If being a minister means having little power and minimal income, then the people who just want power and money seek out other careers. For several centuries, Pope was the best job you could get if you weren’t a king’s first-born. I’m not impugning all of them, but some were clearly not there to serve God. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-protestant-reformation-worth-it/725320/53 "2015-07-19T10:42:30Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Speaking as a Catholic, yes, it was worth it. Luther was right: The Church of his time _was_ hopelessly corrupt, and the Reformation was the wake-up call it took to get it cleaned up. I do wish that more Protestants would realize that the counter-reformation happened, though: Most of what Luther said needed fixing, did indeed get fixed, and in fact there are very few real barriers any more to re-unification. Well, one thing that did not get fixed was a celibate priesthood. Which had, at the time, a well-known association with corruption and sexual abuse. I came from a Baptist background. That corrupt televangelist you remember was probably Baptist: that form of corruption was characteristically associated with the structure of the Baptist church. Not so much institutionalized sexual abuse. There is a reason why the RC church has had a lot of recent problems with revelations of sexual abuse: that kind of abuse has been characteristic of the RC church forever, was one of the big reasons the church was stripped of criminal judgement powers over the clergy, and was one the most obvious reforms brought in by Luther. Not saying reform would lead to re-unification: just saying that the counter-reformation did not erase, and was never intended to erase, all the differences. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-protestant-reformation-worth-it/725320/54 "2015-07-19T15:34:39Z")
I just do not see the need for all these diverse sects-is there any really big difference between Methodism and Episcopalianism? Of course, most protestant sects differ greatly from the RC church, so there are indeed fundamental differences in doctrines (between the RC and protestant Christianity). ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-protestant-reformation-worth-it/725320/55 "2015-07-19T15:47:32Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Except for that whole “papal authority,” “works vs grace,” “divorce vs none,” “holy orders,” “presbyterian vs hierarchal” stuff you mean? 😛 Not to mention: birth control, abortion, homosexuality, and SSM!! ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-protestant-reformation-worth-it/725320/56 "2015-07-19T16:13:57Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > I’m familiar with both Graham Greene and Kim Philby, but I still find the comparison facile. And it’s less than you’re making it out to be…Greene’s just saying that, like those English Catholics who participated in plots against Queen Elizabeth, Philby let his ideological fanaticism lead him to treason, and like well meaning Renaissance Catholics, Philby is willing to overlook the evils and mistakes of the leaders for the promise of some future better world. > > Besides, I’m not entirely convinced the existence of the Church as a counterweight in the middle ages was a bad thing. It was a check against royal power and a counter to royal abuses (although obviously not the only one). Greene was pro-communist, by the late phases of the cold war at least (he was still fairly conservative back when he wrote \The Power and the Glory\), so he probably wasn’t intending this as a criticism of Philby, or for that matter of the 16th century English Catholics. ---
**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 19, 2015, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-protestant-reformation-worth-it/725320/57 "2015-07-19T16:45:01Z")
> **[A “Catholic Fellow-Traveler”? Graham Greene and Communism](https://explorations20th.wordpress.com/2012/10/04/a-catholic-fellow-traveler-graham-greene-and-communism/)** > > Adam Schwartz In 1949, George Orwell felt the need to correct what he considered a friend’s misconception of Graham Greene’s politics. He told T.F. Fyvel that “You keep referring to him as an extre… A different view of Graham Green Catholicism and communism ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-protestant-reformation-worth-it/725320/58 "2015-07-19T17:58:34Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > [A “Catholic Fellow-Traveler”? Graham Greene and Communism | Explorations: The Twentieth Century](https://explorations20th.wordpress.com/2012/10/04/a-catholic-fellow-traveler-graham-greene-and-communism/) > > A different view of Graham Green Catholicism and communism I skimmed that, but I don’t think it disproves my claim. Greene was (broadly speaking) pro-communist, that doesn’t mean he approved of everything the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Cuba or any other communist state did. He did, in the last analysis, state he felt more ideological kinship with the Soviets than with the Americans. (NB: I’m not saying this as a criticism of Greene, either). ---
**Author:** ![AdamF](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/adamf/32/6246_2.png) [@AdamF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AdamF)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-protestant-reformation-worth-it/725320/59 "2015-07-19T18:03:49Z")
> [@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. I would argue that the “Christian unity” was a myth pushed by Popes from 11th century onward who tried to boost their power base. There have always been schisms in Christianity, starting probably with disagreements between Peter and Paul about gentiles. Prior to 11th century, every bishop was practically running his own church (provided that he knew any theology, or gave a damn, or was even literate). And most monastery orders were a sect of their own for all practical purposes. ---
**Author:** ![TennisMenace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f05b48/32.png) [@TennisMenace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TennisMenace)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-protestant-reformation-worth-it/725320/60 "2015-07-19T19:31:23Z")
> [@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? I know things haven’t turned out as well as hoped, but someone had to stand up to the big bully (RCC) and punch them in the mouth for all the errors of their ways. I can’t imagine God was any pleased with what he was watching from Heaven. The Pope is infallible!!! Say what??? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-protestant-reformation-worth-it/725320.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-protestant-reformation-worth-it/725320.md?page=4)