The Enlightenment brought a wave of new thoughts and information to a society dominated by a single controlling force: the Church. This final authority over the people in these dark times controlled them with religious dogma and powerful “suggestive” power over their state leaders. Being the largest and richest organization in the world for centuries has given the Church the ability to crush any free thinker. Before the printing press, the majority of educated and literate people were Christian monks who controlled information, mostly religious texts, and conveyed this selected information to the ignorant masses. After the printing press, information could be mass produced and eventually new ideas of logic and free thought began to creep into the minds of the masses. These new freethinkers like Kant and Voltaire started a revolution because people were finally educated enough to see that some of the “superstitious” aspects of religion didn't hold up much against the logic of the Enlightenment. It made sense because the principles guiding the movement obviously gave more control to the people and they responded positively enough to found new states separate from the church. These new “enlightened” nations began to include ideals such as freedom of speech, of the press, and of association. The people were now deciding what was best for the people and enlightenment became a legitimate progressive movement. I argue that a series of Church hypocrisies, an information boom, and consistent humanitarian victories of the logical sciences led an Enlightenment revolution to succeed in their goals of an enlightened society. The Catholic Church was the dictator of the people both through manipulating a k...... middle of paper ...... movements, our abolition of slavery, our medicine, our balance of power in government, our freedom of speech, association and press, and our freedom to pursue happiness. Our freedoms define our successes. In What is Enlightenment?, Kant defines enlightenment as “man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity.” We have indeed reached the point where we control our future with our minds, opinions and votes. But we must not forget the people who still live under regimes like that of the old church. Regimes like China and North Korea that heavily censor the information their citizens receive from the outside world. Not everyone has achieved a free society, but I believe that an information boom like the Internet will have an exponentially greater effect on the world than print, and if it does, there is hope for a better future.