1648: Western Civilization Tips from Christian to Olympian

The civilizational tipping point in the West between Christianity and Olympianity, Christendom and Europe, technology as an expression of freedom or of power, came at the end of the Latin Christian civil war in 1648. Heralds of this change included Francis Bacon in his book, Novum Organum (New Method) (1620), Rene Descartes in Discourse on the Method (1637), Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan (1651), and Thomas Sprat in The History of the Royal Society (1667).

The first step taken by these still Christian intellectual leaders was to displace the saint or knight, and to ignore the natural philosopher, to valorize the technician as the real hero of Western Civilization.