Enlightenment

In Europe in the late 17th and 18th centuries religious belief would come into question with the Enlightenment. Philosophers such as Descartes, Locke, Newton, Hume, Kant, Goethe, Voltaire and Rousseau argued that reason rather than a belief in the supernatural was the basis of human knowledge and progress. Copernicus and Galileo went head to head with the church by stating that the Earth revolved around the Sun, rather than the other way round.
This led to the reappraisal of the role of the church and monarchies, more tolerance of different faiths and to the rise of revolutionary movements in France and America. In 1859 Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species which contradicted the Bible by arguing that living things evolved over millions of years. In the 19th century various movements such as humanism and Marxism attempted to develop ethical frameworks based on scientific analyses of social, political and economic systems.
Since the Enlightenment alongside increasing secularisation in the West, there has also been a rise in new-age religious sects often drawing on Eastern belief systems. Across the rest of the world there has been a resurgence in interest in religion, particularly Islam, as religious belief has often become identified with struggles against foreign domination.