`Why did Charlemagne accept the imperial title?' Science vs Religion

`Why did Charlemagne accept the imperial title?' The great religious questions of the nineteenth century were in many cases rooted in the events of the eighteenth. The Enlightenment, characterized by an intellectual zeal and a rebellious atheism, set down the foundations upon which the next century's crisis of faith was to be built. As the years passed, science brought to the public's attention discoveries which appeared to undermine the dogmas expounded by the churches, …

…changes were probably more-important in the secularization of Europe. A new moral perspective, arising in part from the work ethic which came with urbanization and expanded capitalism, meant that `eternal punishment now seemed cruel and barbaric, the God responsible for it something of a monster'. Whilst `faith was undoubtedly shaken by scientific advance', it seems that the process of secularization rather than science per se was the `main' enemy of religion in the nineteenth century.