Why I feel The Reformation was the most important era in western history.

[Corran Orreaux]

The Protestant Reformation was an event that started around 1517 and ended around 1648. Started by Martin Luther, a catholic monk who had lost faith in the church after a series of events led him to attempt to reform the papacy, later he would leave it entirely. One of the largest of these events was Luther's attempt at penance; he felt bad but he didn't know why, he just felt guilty. Because of this he took to the traditional ways of penance for a monk, hard labour. He worked countless days cleaning and re-cleaning the church he lived at, among other things, he once stayed outside in the middle of winter doing chores, he refused to come inside as he felt he deserved the pain he went through. His fellow monks had to carry the half-dead Martin inside where he almost died of hypothermia.


He started to question the church as a whole, he worked harder than any other monk at the abbey, but his feelings still tormented him. The pope at the time was also doing less than holy things with the thousands they made off of indulgences.


For one thing, Pope Leo X once had a party where naked boys jumped off of a big cake: http://www.pbs.org/empires/medici/medici/private.html   


Thanks to things like Luther's Ninety-five Theses, more people came to question the papacy, said papacy and Luther's relationship soured. It also didn't help that at one time he called the pope the antichrist.


What Martin Luther did next was the main action that started the Reformation; he made the first full translation of the bible from Latin to a modern language, that being German. Long story short, the common man could read the bible and make their own interpretation, this created many, many, new versions of christianity. Such as Calvinism, methodism, lutheranism, etc.   


The renaissance only got stronger thanks to this new allowance of new ideas. Previously, most ideas that differed from the church too far were labeled as a heresy. An example would be the Waldensians, who were formed in 1173, far before the reformation happened. Heresies like this managed to survive and many joined the protestants in fighting the catholics. 


Not to say the Protestants and their dirty little leagues are fully good little boys, both sides did horrible things in their constant wars. Despite the power of the renaissance and reformation being all sexy in the allowance of new ideas to be spread, it wasn't like europe as a whole turned into a social and scientific paradise. Protestant nations had little issue with slaves. Witches and DA GAYS were still put to death, and many still didn't like people we weren't christian. I mean as bad as those damn catholics/protestants are, least they still love Jesus. Martin Luther himself penned a good couple things against those who weren't christian, like the book 'The Jews and their lies' obviously not being nice to jews. 


But nonetheless, These events set the west on the path of equality, while not denying that we have plenty of rights issues on every side, men, women, gay, straight, if not for this series of events it is unlikely we would be at where we are now. When I look at history I see a testament to humanity's progress, as well as a never ending painting of what evil we can commit.


Humanity is hip cuz we are extremely adaptable, creative, we fought to and successfully denied what nature wanted for us. We developed agriculture, increasing population to much higher levels than we were supposed to ever have. History is a warning, a warning many seen to ignore.