Over the last couple of weeks in class, we have been focusing on how events in the past are still affecting us today. Particularly, we are looking at the Enlightenment period, which started in the late 17th century. The Enlightenment has affected the ways we think today religiously, politically, socially, and scientifically. Martin Luther was the catalyst for religious change, breaking up a once-central Roman Catholic Church into many smaller sects of Christianity such as Lutheran, Anabaptist, and Calvinism. This tore the Roman Catholic Church's power and political control in half, and soon many people began to challenge the churches way of thinking. Philosophers, such as John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau greatly influenced our understandings of ethics, morals, politics, and the way we think today.