The Enlightenment was an age of optimism, strengthened by the realization of the sad state of the human condition and the need for major reforms. It was a period in which thinkers believed that humanity, through the use of reason, was beginning to gain ownership and control over the world. However, with the Enlightenment came the destruction of the old fixed order. This new age of thinking and reason made people not only start to question their everyday lives, but their existence as a whole. Before the Enlightenment one's reason for existing was determined by the Church, but with the surfacing of Darwin's theory of evolution, Martin Luther's ninety-five theses against the establishment of the Church and England creating their own Church separate from Rome's, people started to question everything they had been taught. This was the beginning of humanities" great downfall. .
In "Human, all too Human", Nietzsche wrote "Christianity came into existence in order to lighten the heart; but now it has first to burden the heart so as afterwards to be able to lighten it. Consequently it shall perish." Nietzsche's foreshadowing of the Church's fate was correct. People need restraints to keep in line, and the Church provided those restraints by deciphering between what was right and wrong, and teaching the people the difference between right and wrong. The Enlightenment got rid of those restraints and brought in the current mindset of relativism. With relativism no one is right or wrong because there are no fixed standards or values. It made everyone's opinion matter. It also gave people the freedom to question the Church's teachings and even attempt to prove some teachings wrong. With this new concept of open thought and open mind many scientific discoveries were made which eventually shattered the Church. With the invention of the telescope it was proven that we were nothing but a tiny planet circling the sun.