【41-50 閱讀二】To understand the natural world and humankind's place in it solely on the basis of reason and without turning to religious belief was the goal of the wide-ranging intellectual movement called the Enlightenment. A majority of thinkers during the 17th and 18th centuries were followers of the Enlightenment movement. Many of these followers, including Thomas Paine, referred to their movement as the Age of Reason. This movement created a conflict between religion and the inquiring mind that wanted to know and understand through reason based on evidence and proof.Like all historical trends and movements, the Enlightenment had its roots in the past. Three of the chief sources for Enlightenment thought were the ideas of the ancient Greek philosophers, the Renaissance, and scientific revolution of the late Middle Ages.The ancient philosophers had noticed the regularity in the operation of the natural world and concluded that the reasoning mind could see and explain this regularity. Among these philosophers, Aristotle was preeminent in discovering and explaining the natural world.Followers of the Enlightenment claimed that the birth of Christianity interrupted philosophical attempts to analyze and explain purely on the basis of reason. Christianity built a complicated worldview that relied on both faith and reason to explain reality.Coupled with these events was the scientific revolution, a modem discipline that soon lost patience with religious quibbling and what was seen as the attempts of churches to hamper progress in thought. Among the leaders of this revolution were Francis Bacon, Rene Descartes, Nicolaus Copernicus, Galileo, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, and-most significant of all—Isaac Newton. It was Newton who explained the universe and who justified the rationality of nature.
41.What is this passage mainly about?
(A) The Enlightenment
(B) The Renaissance
(C) The importance of religious beliefs
(D) Understanding the natural world