<span>The Enlightenment challenged the traditional authority of the church. During the Scientific Revolution, empirical research and observation was put forth as the path to finding truths about nature and the universe. Astronomers such as Nicolaus Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, and Galileo Galilei were religious men, but they encountered much resistance from the established church because their ideas challenged the church's teaching that the Earth was the center of the universe. The Enlightenment went even further than the Scientific Revolution had gone in challenging the traditions and authority of the church. A number of Enlightenment thinkers were Deists -- belieiving God created the universe but let it run from there on natural principles He created. Some Enlightenment proponents, such as David Hume and Denis Diderot, even went as far as agnosticism (Hume) or atheism (Diderot). </span>
Answer:The Enlightenment challenged the traditional authority of the church. During the Scientific Revolution, empirical research and observation was put forth as the path to finding truths about nature and the universe. Astronomers such as Nicolaus Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, and Galileo Galilei were religious men, but they encountered much resistance from the established church because their ideas challenged the church's teaching that the Earth was the center of the universe. The Enlightenment went even further than the Scientific Revolution had gone in challenging the traditions and authority of the church. A number of Enlightenment thinkers were Deists -- belieiving God created the universe but let it run from there on natural principles He created. Some Enlightenment proponents, such as David Hume and Denis Diderot, even went as far as agnosticism (Hume) or atheism (Diderot).
