Robespierre and The Reign of Terror

Before democracy came officially to France, the French people suffered a time of hardcore horror known as the Reign of Terror. The reign of terror had to do with the cruel ruling of a dictator named Maximilien Robespierre. Robespierre during that time took control of France when the country was at a struggle of power. He tried to erase everything that reminded his people about the old monarchy.

The thing that gave the reign of terror it's name was Robespierre sending people to be executed using a contraption called the guillotine. The guillotine was a machine that cuts people's heads off, used before Robespierre took control. It has contributed to the death of King Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette by a powerful group called the Jacobins. The reason he executed many people with this device was the fact that these people might be a dangerous threat to the so called free government. It ended when the French got tired of Robespierre's government cutting people's heads off with the influence that they might be next. They took Robespierre to the guillotine and paid the price of killing millions of innocent people with his head chopped off.

The French Revolution: Social Causes

It all started with the structure of the French social groups or estates. It was mostly the trigger that started the French Revolution. The first two estates(consisting of the clergy and the nobles) having the least number of people, but it has the most power when it comes to decision making for France. The opposite can be said for the third estate which has most of the population than the other estates. The third estate had very little power to make decisions for the country. When taxes are involved in the cause of the french revolution, the first two estates were to pay little or were forgiven of taxes while the third estate payed taxes extremely high. The people of the third estate felt that the government is using them to get what they want. An example of this is the goods the third estate produce for the other two estates, the king and queen.

The hope of the third estate getting the government to be reformed was an idea they saw at the time of the Enlightenment especially the thinkers Rousseau and Voltaire but most importantly Comte d’Antraigues. According to a quote from D'Antraigues writing Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution, it says that "People is everything". In other words relating to the French revolution, people of the third estate has every right to get privileges from the government because they were the people that has supported the government every single day with their hard work. It should be the least thing the government should do to reward the hard work made by the third estate.

The government made another role to the French Revolution. During the late 1700's, France was suffering with a bad economy level. They were owing lots of money leading the country to a state of bankruptcy and the king especially King Louis XVI didn't do anything to stop the debt. The third estate got so mad about the unfairness of the Estates-General meeting that they created a new assembly for the third estate only which is called the National Assembly. Louis XVI wanted to make peace with the third estate making the clergy and nobles to join the national assembly. At the sense of trouble, the king order Swiss guards into Paris for his protection. With the rumor of foreign troops coming into Paris to kill French citizens, people gathered weapons to protect themselves from that foreign troops. An example of this was on July 14, 1789 when people gained control of a Paris prison called Bastille from the king's soldiers for gunpowder representing a "symbolic act of revolution" for France.

Copernicus and the Trial of Galileo

Geocentric vs. Heliocentric

There are two theories that around the time of the scientific revolution, it has created a outstanding controversy. Those theories are the heliocentric derived from Copernicus and the geocentric derived from Aristole. Both theories are about the world outside Earth known as the Universe precisely about the object that is in the center of the solar system. The geocentric talks about the earth being the center of the universe and the planets, stars, the sun, etc. revolving around it. The heliocentric which is the successor of the geocentric is about the sun being the center of the solar system and probably the center of the universe, and every other object revolving around it. The church and people before the scientific revolution believed in the geocentric but thanks to the scientific method during the 16th century, the geocentric was proven wrong. Then it was modified into the heliocentric during the scientific revolution in which people now believe that this is the correct theory.

The Trail of Galileo

The trail of Galileo was about him spreading the ideas of Copernicus when the Roman Catholic Church told them not to. Galileo believed in Copernicus' ideas about the heliocentric theory. He proved this theory right thanks to his newly invented telescope proving that the earth never was in the center of the solar system. He has spread this theory to everyone in the 16th century ignoring the church's order of not spreading this idea. The church thought that the heliocentric was false and believed in the geocentric. What they did to stop the spreading of the heliocentric theory was that they sent Galileo to prison and sentenced him to life imprisonment. Then the church took his writing about the heliocentric theory and put it in a place called the "Index of Prohibited Books" where a guy named Kepler and Copernicus' writing was located.

Scientific Revolution: Scientific Method

The scientific method is used to distinguish if any theory is right or wrong. This is the best method to use to gain accurate information about any topic. It consists of the some steps in which is shown on this flow chart to the left. If the experiment proves the hypothesis correct, then the hypothesis can now be considered as a theory. If it doesn't, then the hypothesis is not considered as a theory and must be modified or rejected.

Here is an example of how the scientific method works. There was a theory made by Aristole about males and females having different amounts of teeth. If you test this theory with the scientific method by observing the number of teeth of males and females, you get the result as males and females having the same amount of teeth. That means that Aristole's theory is proven wrong, and a new accurate theory has emerged.

Evolution vs Creation

Evolution

Evolution is a theory created by Charles Darwin explaining how different species came from a common ancestor and how are those species formed. That means that the most complex creatures that people know today evolved from simplest ancestor. This evolution has been caused by a genetic mutation that changes the genetic code of particular specie. The result is Natural selection, or the specie having a characteristic in which can be used to survive a typical environment some other organisms can't and producing offspring's that was crossed over with that specific characteristic. A specie is formed by an organism made of systems of organs, that is part of many systems of tissues, and which is made from millions of systems of cells. The only catch is if anything is missing on a particular system, then that system will deteriorate causing damages to that specie.

Creationism

Creationism is what many people believe in talking about a god or goddesses creating humanism, life in earth, earth itself, and the whole universe. The number of gods depends on the religion people might believe in (some examples are Christianity, Islam, etc.). Information realating to creationism can be found in a section called genesis. Genesis can be found in the first part of the old testament of the bible. Controversey still continues with evolutionists and creationists so that they can figure out which side has the truth between the creation of species, earth and the universe.