How was the role of religion shaped by the enlightenment?

Answer 1

Enlightenment thinkers preferred religious toleration and advocated it much more than any previous thinkers had. They accepted the idea that churches were simply for religious beliefs. Yet, it is important to keep in mind that toleration was still limited. Many Christians saw Jews as heretics and Christ killers. And even when Enlightenment thinkers condemned prosecution, they still thought of Judaism and Islam as backward religions.

There were the exceptions, such as Gotthold Lessing and Moses Mendelssohn. Lessing argued, in his play Nathan the Wise(1779) that the three great monotheistic religions (Christianity, Islam, and Judaism) were all just different renditions of the truth. Religion is only true if it makes the believer virtuous. Mendelssohn took up the subject of Jewish identity in a series of writings. His most well-known work is On the Religious Authority of Judaism (1783). Here, he defended Jewish communities against anti-Semitic criticisms, yet also recommended that the Jewish community reform to be more tolerant and humanitarian.

Thus, religion was looked at through a more open-minded point of view during the Enlightenment and its importance as an institution/dogma was lessened and became what it truly was: a belief.