What is Love?

The main theme of the poems we've discussed so far is love. Different poems describe different types of love. John Donne writes about love between souls and another clever piece about sexual attraction. Marvell focuses on a sexual relationship in his poem. Shakespeare's sonnets describe love between two men and an inter-racial love. So taking all these poems into consideration, what do you think makes "true love"? Sexual attraction, compatibility of souls, or a combination of the two?

Protestant vs. Catholic

Would you take the side of the Protestant's idea of good work, or the Catholics idea of faith in order to reach salvation?

Religion vs. Science

After our great discussion in class about, well I still don't fully understand what, I have a question for you all.  Today, we were talking more about wether or not science and religion can coexist nowadays.  Do you think that both science and religion could have coexisted during the time that we are talking about in World Civ? Why or why not? And what do you think needed to change in order to make them coexist? (With this question I am talking about the time from the Middle Ages through the Renaissance with the rise of Humanism up to what we are talking about now with the Counter-reformation.)

Downfall of the Renaissance (I think it's my turn...)

Alright. This is going somewhere trust me.

So we have been learning about the end of the Renaissance in Italy and today we have discussed the differences between the early stages and the late stages. We previously talked about what started it and just talked about what ended it. We were also briefly told that a discussion on whether the Renaissance was an advancement or not will occur before the week ends.

Using this information (and drawing from textual sources we have used), look at this question: In your head, compare the Middle Ages to the Italian Renaissance to the 1600s+. Do you think humanity in Europe, specifically Italy, has advanced overall, returned to the caliber of or declined to the likeliness of  the Middle Ages, or has done neither and had its advancements and downsides? Why?

(In short, was it better overall, worse overall, or neither?)