Religion is a foundamental part of our society.Today you fight for religious idea.Studying about the past you can understand that things are not change.History learns us to don't repeat the same mistakes but I don't think that this is really the truth.Humanity looks if she doesn't understand nothing;the problem is that you are not able to accept other idea or other way of being!

When we speak about these topics we often forget to pose the problem: is religion the cause of controversies or its use? In 1517 a German monk from Wittenberg felt the necessity of stop the Catholic Church because of its clearly visible corruption: the company of Jesus, held by the Church of Rome, had the role to sell people salvation for moneys. This was the breaking-edge that had Martin Luther to act on these injustices. The Catholic faith was used to empower the pope and his minions at a pure tangible dimension. In 1534 Henry VIII stated the Act of Supremacy: he had asked the pope to let him divorce from his wife and Clement VII had not conceded it, accordingly to catholic principles about the holy matrimony. It appears clear that Henry bigger purpose was to confiscate the goods of the English monasteries and churches to increase the reign capital. Today’s religion controversies are not so different from the pasts: the occidental countries feels themselves chosen by God and want to fight the terrorism of oriental countries. At the same time, oriental countries want to fight all the unfaithful people in the name of God and also indoctrinate childrens to be proud, sacrifice themselves in the name of the real God and give no-mercy to others.

The problem of religion re-acend from the origins of humanity.
We can find in every century the intensely and considerable policy presence of the Religion.
As Mr. Cancellieri written I think that "Religion has always been the people's drug".
In the past the conception of Religion in all Europe citizen was to follow all the laws that the Church iussed and imposed without somebody could says sometimes.
In the Renaissence the Church lost his power to the Reformation, carried out by Martin Lutero who protested against the corruption and the wealth of the Roman Church.
This Reformation inspired various Religious moviment like Calvinism and Puritanism. This moviment fought against the Church a long time and at last they suceeded to defeat her and her power on the territory and the State.
As a matter of fact in the Renaissence in all Europe countries, for example in Germany and France, the peoples fought against the Church to create a new form of Religion and, as in England, the people fought against the other fellow citizen to impose the new Religion.
In conclusion I think that in the past the objective of the Church was to command all the Europe's territories and to increase his power and wealths; but now I believe that the Church wants help the new peoples and citizens to find thetrue essences of life:
the sense of family;the fight to the felony and the abstentation to the war.
Some of this objects create more discussion and protests, for example the homosexual culture and society that retain wrong and offensive the vision of family and cohabitation of the Church.

The past has given life to the present: we have just studied how the different religions from catholicism have been born. Religious problems have existed since when men were born and they will be forever.

In my opinion religion wants only give some reasons to people to explain their existance and some phenomena. Without religious wars people can live in peace, also because sometimes religion is used as an excuse to catch up other scopes.

I think that to know the past is essential to live the present. As a matter of fact, the study of the past can result: an example to imitate or a pattern to follow to understand where now we mistake, teaching from the past errors.
The current reality is besides a consequence of the past. As a matter of fact, a lot of moviments during the Renaissance are again today object of discussions and part of reality in which we live.
For example in England the protestants, called Puritans, adopted a strict moral code of behaviou and their doctrine was based on talent\'s parable that pushed people to exploit their ability, and this poinst out the consequence: England will became the most important industrial centre.
In the end, I think that the history are us!

I think that to know the past is essential to live the present. As a matter of fact, the study of the past can result: an example to imitate or a pattern to follow to understand where now we mistake, teaching from the past errors.
The current reality is besides a consequence of the past. As a matter of fact, a lot of moviments during the Renaissance are again today object of discussions and part of reality in which we live.
For example in England the protestants, called Puritans, adopted a strict moral code of behaviou and their doctrine was based on talent\'s parable that pushed people to exploit their ability, and this poinst out the consequence: England will became the most important industrial centre.
In the end, I think that the history are us!

I think the study of the past is very important because it help us to understand how we are living and what mistakes we’re doing. The past tries to give us answers about the events but, sometimes it cannot for the absence of proof or because the proofs were cancelled by someone that would cancel the tragic event
The present, maybe, is the result of the past in all its aspects, positives or negative

The past is a chain of events, sometimes, tragic as wars or famines….
The knowledge of the story, particularly of past, should allow us to face this present in aware way without making same mistakes.
Unfortunately it doesn’t always succeed; in fact the examples are: bloody wars, the behaviours of intolerance against some religions, culture or races.

In my opinion it’s not important studying about the past, if students learn by heart. Teachers should promote the attitude to present the past in contemporary terms. Knowing by heart is useful for students that have to survive daily interrogations and tests, but afterwards you can’t find absolutely anything in their mind to understand the present world. Thus I think that only the union between a good knowledge of recent events and between a minded knowledge of the past may help to understand that there are not difference between Münster, Mylai and Haditha.

I’m sure the knowledge of the past helps us to understand present and to not make the same mistakes of the past, too.
In 1534 Henry VIII chose to break with the Catholic Church by declaring himself “Supreme Head of the Church of England”. Nowadays the politicals talk still about what competes to the State and what competes to the Church. This clash is always current because you play a lot of power on common people, in fact religion has always influenced society.
You can see how much Puritans were important for English economy. Today the situation of Europe is changed a lot because religious controversies don’t generate wars (but there are 500 years of evolution and tolerance). Unfortunately outside the Europe people don’t learn from our mistakes.

To promote knowledge and innovation;
To focus on growth and imployment;
To create jobs;
To make Europe a more attractive place to invest and work.
This four objectives are the new bases of the Lisbon Strategy after the review in 2005.
In Italy there is a lot of disinformation aboutthe Lisbon Strategy, because, as my schoolfriend has written, " only Italian newspaper and newcast don't promote the Union".
this aspect is very serious and important because the Italian citizens, to became European citizens, they have to find in all schools and universities the possibilities to increase theirs culture and formation about the Union and his aspect, for example the projects of language and spirit of enterprise, that are most important because this projects prepare the students to enter in the new modern labour market.
In addition to this I think that Italian school can help the implementation of te Lisbon Strategy but to do this and to reach the objectives of L.S. all school must have laboratories, connections to internet and last but not list all the teachers must be trained in the use of internet and multimedia resurces.
At last I think that training must be coustant because the speed of technological and innovation change quickly.

I'd like to answer to Luca Bianchin.
Premised that you have written many rightest things in a very precise way, I'm not in agreement when you say that religion reflects the society: this could be true in the passed centuries, but nowadays, in my opinion, there is too much information to be still able to believe blindly to supernatural.
In this case, I'm more in agreement with Lorenzo who says “the religion is the opium of the people”: in fact, I believe that the usefullness of the religion is often more an escape from the reality, than a way of thinking of the “common people”.
It is still be used as an “instrumentum regni” simply because of an image factor: everything connected to religion is “good” and, nowadays, "to appear" is more important than "to be".

...two is better than one...

Church has always been a problem for Europe. To give an example, we can think about the 16th century, and the famous contestation of Martin Luther. We can also remind the 14 century and how the church instrumentalized the plague making people believe it was be a matter of divine rage.
From the fall of the Roman Empire to 1849 and the Italy unit, Church always tried to stop the march respectively of the Longobardi, the Veneziani and more over. If the Church would not took part, Italy would have become one singular state before, and would have been probably in a position to face the new national states (Germany, France), than they were being formed in 18th century.
Who follows fanatically the Church and the other various religions, not for last the new schisms, than can be led back in a certain sense to cults that were proposed from Martin Luther and from Calvin?
They are people of low social class, often illiterate, that need something trascendent that gives a sense to their life.
Ignorance makes us believe everything is told us; ignorance is what prevents us to grow: this is what we must learn from History.

History is a sort of cycle, a mass of situations and conceptions of life that reappear continuously and that will succeed till the end of time. Men used Religion as an excuse to began a war. So we can ask ourselves \\\\\\\"Man is an error of God? Or God is an error of Man?\\\\\\\". There is no answer to that question. Religion has been a crucial point for humanity during the last centuries and it influenced all the mentality of people. Since the XV century we began to have a new conception of life that changed completely our behavior in front of life. The new conception of ego make the power of reason strong near the power of religion that governed for centuries the education of men. From the period of Reformation to nowadays the situation isn\\\\\\\'t changed so much, humanity or, better, who has the power inside the humanity use religion as an excuse to do their own business. Religion teaches no wrong precepts but is the way in which it present right precepts that is wrong, this happened because if the world evolved in time religion is still the same. So if we want understand why something happens we have to find our answers in the past. \\\\\\\"To create something new we have to know very well all the old things\\\\\\\". So tecnology changed the world but man is still man and his mind is the same of time ago, the difference is the period in which every man have to use his mind that is necessarily influenced by the time of his life. The cycle of life will continue so at a certain point we will understand that we are return to the start point even if it is caused by something new.

Religion has always stop progress untill it began too much to be stopped.

History is a sort of cycle, a mass of situations and conceptions of life that reappear continuously and that will succeed till the end of time. Men used Religion as an excuse to began a war. So we can ask ourselves \\\\\\\"Man is an error of God? Or God is an error of Man?\\\\\\\". There is no answer to that question. Religion has been a crucial point for humanity during the last centuries and it influenced all the mentality of people. Since the XV century we began to have a new conception of life that changed completely our behavior in front of life. The new conception of ego make the power of reason strong near the power of religion that governed for centuries the education of men. From the period of Reformation to nowadays the situation isn\\\\\\\'t changed so much, humanity or, better, who has the power inside the humanity use religion as an excuse to do their own business. Religion teaches no wrong precepts but is the way in which it present right precepts that is wrong, this happened because if the world evolved in time religion is still the same. So if we want understand why something happens we have to find our answers in the past. \\\\\\\"To create something new we have to know very well all the old things\\\\\\\". So tecnology changed the world but man is still man and his mind is the same of time ago, the difference is the period in which every man have to use his mind that is necessarily influenced by the time of his life. The cycle of life will continue so at a certain point we will understand that we are return to the start point even if it is caused by something new.

Religion has always stop progress untill it began too much to be stopped.

"Religion has always been the people's drug." It has been used in order to involve them in wars and to earn money from them. (...and to work one day the week for 2 hours...) I think that studying religion's history can help in understanding the "evolution" of the world, because religion is maybe one of the things which has always sided the man. In the end it is just a businnes; who really believes, doesn't have to show it or to wear a toga, we can talk with god on our own: at least, that's what I think. In a present like this where the islamic foundamentalism fights against the unfaithful we clearly see that Man hasn't changed, hasn't learnt.

From Middle ages to Renaissance the code of values changed. First of all the attention on God moved to the concept of man; the human being changed this location of importance and he acquired a central role. The attention was drown on man, his body (not only his soul), on Nature and on classical literature (Latin and Greek).
Furthermore during the XVI century there was a lot of protests (Reformation) because of the corruption of the Church. Protestantism gathers different religious trends, and Calvinism is one of that. Calvinists took different names in respect of the place in which they lived: in England they were called Puritans. The birth of capitalism and a new Middle class came from this particular religious trend. As a matter of fact the new puritan code of behaviour was based on a new mentality of liberalism and mercantilism. The idea of progress had a central role. As a matter of fact the famous parable of talents said that people that don’t progress, they are not the favourites of God. Puritans’ political importance was increasing. They were elected to Parliament by landowners, by the emerging middle classes (businessmen and merchants) and by everyone was against the absolute monarchy. Because of their opposition to the Crow they later migrated to USA to avoid persecutions. History has affected the present situation: it justifies the different ideologies between the East and the West of the today’s world. The first is poor and based on the mentality of socialism in which everybody is considered the same, the second has a culture grown out of the Puritanism’s capitalism. The development of this mentality strengthened the idea of progress and competition (occidental ideology).

Since man was born he has tried to explain himself everything he could not explain by his experience or his knowledge. Therefore religion was created to expound what has been considered supernatural. After the religion’s formation was create an important figure: the religious leader has become the most important man in every culture. But by the passing of time some leaders decided to use their power to become more powerful, opposing his culture people. During the renaissance some people understood that the church of Rome was corrupted and in Europe there were a lot of “debate” and after that some new and un-corrupted churches were born. Nowadays the church understands that its influence to people is lowering and therefore it’s loosing its power on the citizens; therefore it’s trying to take part of state’s businesses even if it is not its action field. I think it must make a breach with the state not to create an occasion for a “debate” and to fulfil its function.

I think that the word “Religion” comprise two different aspects: the dogmatic aspect and the policy aspect. in relation with the history, the most important and interesting is certainly the policy aspect.
Always in the history the religion represented an instrument of power or, also, the pretext to make wars or resounding actions.
In the particular case of the renaissance in England, we can understand how the religion was a sort of “shield” to don’t show the really “high stake” .

Macchiavelli says that religion is an instrument of power.
How say tha it is false?
Studying the past and the birth of all the religion we could see that they've borned in a period when poor people needed something whom believe in.
Today religious war are a quatidian affair,but in whose name?How much gods are there?
History teach that everyone mede the better use of religion for his interests.So,why make other wars?
Religion is a pretext also today,but people want not see that and not admitting that religious war would go on in a worse way.
Think about that...

Religion is the mirror of society. It reflects the light of tradition and it has the function to set the roots on which the society will develop. Religion, since the Renaissance was considered an “instrumentum regni” that implies that it was a tool used for political aims. As a lot of posts says, there are still Italian problems relied on the inappropriate influence of religion, but the main characterization religion has is that it wants to represent the culture, the identity of a population. Therefore the pseudo-war of religion prospected in the last few years tries to become a real cultural juxtaposition, just for the political interest in maintaining people unaware of what politics really do. Religion is a pretext. On the other side religious institutions like Roman Church, seem to accept this situation, for the power and the reputation they can get.

From my way of thinking region is a way of comparison with the past. If we well analyse each religion and its history, we notice that in the past there were a lot of war caused by the religion. Religions divided people , they don’t join people. Nowadays it is impossible to think to subordinate our life to religion. Studying the past is important to understand the causes of our present, I don’t think could be important to correct our actions. People haven’t learnt anything yet and probably won’t lean anything in future. So the most intelligent thing is to put religion out of our social life and practice it only in our within.

I think that the role of the Church has always gone beyond the simple religious one; in effect a lot of times religion has been a pretext to gain political or economical power.
Talking about nowadays' situation, I also think that the influence of the Church on one State's policy should be reduced; it's impossible that still in 2007 a religious institution could modify the civil life and, what's more, it is also very popular among common people.

Religious problems have been a hot field in every ages. Also in our days there are some problems all over the world.
Think about the Middle East, but also Italy and other countries of Europe. Therefore people didn't learn anything from the past. All people dying for religious contention are not taken into considerations. As a matter of fact countries use religious causes to give reasons to their actions. Is it right?!

Moreover religion creates people that don't accept some points of the society, for example homosexual people or differences between various religions. Therefore it creates high oppositions against the different.

Church has always been a problem for Europe. To give an example, we can think about the 16th century, and the famous contestation of Martin Luther. We can also remind the 14 century and how the church instrumentalized the plague making people believe it was be a matter of divine rage.
From the fall of the Roman Empire to 1849 and the Italy unit, Church always tried to stop the march respectively of the Longobardi, the Veneziani and more over. If the Church would not took part, Italy would have become one singular state before, and would have been probably in a position to face the new national states (Germany, France), than they were being formed in 18th century.
Who follows fanatically the Church and the other various religions, not for last the new schisms, than can be led back in a certain sense to cults that were proposed from Martin Luther and from Calvin?
They are people of low social class, often illiterate, that need something trascendent that gives a sense to their life.
Ignorance makes us believe everything is told us; ignorance is what prevents us to grow: this is what we must learn from History.

I think that the study oh the past is very important to understand the present.
Roman Church,and generally Church has influenced the world where we live.
In the Midlle Ages the Church was stronger than today.It was a very big country and it was very important for the balance of Europe.Nowdays the Church has got less influence cmpared to Middle Ages.When we hear talk about PACS,'Aborto','Eutanasia' we always hear the Church's opinions.
In my opinion the Church would have take an interest in religion.

Roman Church unfortunately influences our policy also nowadays.
In all European history this fact created a lot of problematic situations (the massacre of St Bartholomew in 1572 when 2000 Protestants were killed by Catholics, the foundation of the Inquisition that could put heretics to death or the modern problems about euthanasia and DICOs).
But this situation born in 1517 when a German monk, Martin Luther, led the first revolt against Roman ecclesiastical authority.
This act inspired a lot of religious trends: Calvinism (in France these protestants were called Huguenots) and Puritanism are the most important.
The church was accused of corruption: people disgust at the corruption of the clergy and at the enormous wordly wealth of the Church originated a lot of religious protest.
Also today the Church is accused of corruption and it influences too much our policy.
We have to remember that we are in a laic society so the Church should not operate in policy.

Studying the past you can better understand our world. As a matter of fact may today’s situations are consequences of something happened long time ago.
Look at the USA and great Britain: nowadays they are two of the most powerful countries in the world. Why?
You have to go back until the Renaissance to find an answer. After the Protestant schism from Roman Catholic Church lots of different religious trend were inspired by Protestantism: the one which was born in England was called Puritanism. It appealed to the rising Middle Class, that was the back bone of the society, because it was based on a strict moral code of behaviour and on the ethic of work: the success in business was considered the living proof that you had the blessing of God. The Middle Class was able to improve England’s economy and to promote the industrial revolution. It made England the greatest power in the world and exported its ideals to Northern America.
This is just a little example of what the Protestant schism caused but it gives an idea of how much our world is influenced by the past.
Studying and discussing about past is a good opportunity to extend our world view and even to find solutions to some serious problems like the peace one.

I think that the study of the past is inevitably important to understand the reality of the present.
Now, studying the Renaissance, we can understand for example why the Anglican Church is indipendent from Rome or why in Europe there are a lot of religions.
During the Renaissance there were a lot of movements that contributed to create a new reality in this continent for example Calvinism, Lutheranism, Protestantism and Anglicanism.
Moreover the Catholicism developed even if there were a lot of "wars" between the Europe's states: Henry VIII declared the Anglican Church's indipendence with the Act of Supremacy!
All movements determined a development in the society of each state: for example Puritanism was important because it contributes to the England's industrial power.
Each event of the past provides more details to understand the situation of the Contemporary World!

ciao a tutti

Religion has always influenced society. During the Renaissance, for example, religious persecutions were common practice; nowadays religion can subvert science, foster fanaticism, encourage bigotry towards homosexuals and influence society in other negative ways (Just think of the recent controversy about DICOs).
A lot of things are connected to religion, because it is closely connected to people's souls and feeds on such powerful emotions as faith and fear of God.
But how are past religious events connected to the present?
We must know the past to understand why people nowadays believe in God, read the horoscopes and contact mediums.
Probably, if men hadn't been so afraid of death, religion wouldn't had become so important. Do you agree?

Without past, how could there be a present? If we analyse the past, we can find some useful precepts for the present and understand why the present religious situation is that. During the Renaissance the protestant movement and reformation came to existence and involved Europe and England. In the 17th century the Church was corrupted and there was a popular disgust of the clergy. Martin Luther, a German monk, was the first that led the revolt against Roman ecclesiastic authority. Therefore the Lutheranism was the main religious movement of the Protestantism. Even today the Lutherans exist and they are called Evangelists. They are about 100 millions in the world. The Protestantism inspired various religious trends like Calvinism (in French), Presbyterianism (in Scotland) and Anglicanism (in England). Considering the reformation of the English church, we can understand the reason why the Anglican church today doesn’t depend on the Church of Rome.
If we also look to the Puritanism we can say that it (with its strict moral code of behaviours and its doctrine) is the main cause of the big industrial power of England.
Taking in consideration the social system the medieval one was based on the model of feudalism and was centred around the three states of nobility, clergy, and peasants. The morality of the Catholic believer depended on the respect of the hierarchy, and the same situation is goes on today.

Looking to the way of the reformation, to Church reactions and paying attention to the develop of the different religious trends we can understand the global situation and the cause of the difference between south Europe, north Europe and U.S.A.
We can understand that differences looking for the moral values and life style of Calvinism.
Why Calvinism? first of all we have to remember that Puritanism comes from Calvinism, it’s also important to remember that the Pilgrims Fathers that exported in the New World the English culture where Calvinists;
The centre of Puritan though was the talent parabola.
It means that if you doesn’t exploit your’s talents you are damned. Those who wonts progress in life are not blessed by God. In this way English and American people tried to be successful to worth salvation.
We have also to remember that in north of Europe religion privilege the relationship between wife and husband and in south of Europe religion promote the role of woman as mother.

The study of the past may help us understand the present, in fact with the Act of Supremacy the king was declared the only, and supreme head of the Church in England. Thus studying this period we can understand the reason why the Anglican Church is independent from Rome.
Moreover the study of the Renaissance and of the Reformation may help us understand the origins of a liberal policy in economy. Thus in this period we can find the bases of the modern mentality that started with the formation of the Middle Class important for the mercantilism.
The Puritanism is another example to explain the relation between the past and the present. As the matter of fact the Puritans adopted a strict moral code of behaviours and their doctrine was founded on the talent’s parable that push person to exploit their ability. This particular can help us understand the reason why England will become the most important industrial centre.
Moreover is during the Renaissance that the man began to have a central role in the society, in fact in the Middle Ages the attention was focused on the God and the Church was the most important power. Thus is in this period that the man becomes responsible of his destiny.