Bryce Dawkins
Paragraph 1: The church or religions have been a powerful thing for many centuries. Religions and faith have built empires, have been the cause of mass genocides and have brought countless amounts of people together in the past hundred years. I don’t want to compare science and inventions to a the nasty step brother that no one knows or wants to get to know. But throughout history this has been the case regarding science in comparison to the church. I’m going to focus on Christianity being that it is one of the main religions brought up in the text. Trying to prove that science and inventions are valuable means to society has been a never ending struggle to scientist philosophers such as Priestly, Franklin and the other Whigs. And proving that or possibly exposing that flaws to the Holy Book is not something people of faith or the church will take lightly or just allow to happen. But as we know scientist like to push the boundaries to real magic and science, to actually faith and misleadings. Priestly did exactly this, being a man of faith he still wanted to push the boundaries to beliefs so he wrote a book. “History and the Corruptions of Christianity” this book in a nutshell basically exposed the flaws to this certain religion. This book focused mainly on the instances of magic and mysticism these examples hes referencing to are the Holy Ghost and if God and Jesus are the same being or separate entities, also referencing that Jesus could have been more of a messenger rather than a actual son. Being a man of faith this must have been hard for Priestly but it seems he knew this was the right thing to do. This example shows the fear the churches would feel from science, having their faith exposed and having a man who plays with electricity and air pumps to expose your flaws. This is no means me bashing the Christian faith but rather stating the facts of Priestley’s book.
Paragraph 2: I hate to say it but no. I do not believe the things Priestley did for our nation regarding the technological research are still relevant today. I will say the only thing I could still see prevalent today are his claims regarding the church and christianity. I know this is short and not all that in depth but that’s what I think.