Although the American colonies developed original American beliefs through westward expansion; The ideas of the British Enlightenment and Anglicization provided the foundation for American ideals, demonstrating that the culture that emerged in the mid-18th century colonies was indistinct from Great Britain. The English Enlightenment represented innovation in technology, the advancement of communication, and the destruction of absolutism. which significantly influenced American culture. Scientific discoveries in Europe, cultivated primarily by Isaac Newton, Galileo, and Copernicus, were the pinnacle of scientific rationalism, or the science that provides answers to questions reached through human inquiry, not the scriptures of the Bible. These discoveries went completely against the religious ideals of the time, one example was the discovery of craters on the moon, which proved that all things created by God are not perfect. The printing press allowed scientific ideas to be effectively spread throughout the world. Science's upheaval of religion spread throughout Europe, to Britain, and finally to the American colonies. As religious beliefs were replaced by scientific facts, North American universities grew and became secular. In Europe, absolute monarchs were ousted and established churches were denied the right to have hierarchical power. The rise of science was also reflected in new political ideas. Montesquieu's The Spirit of the Laws, Rousseau's The Social Contract, and John Locke's Two Treatises of Government justified the ostracism of absolute monarchs through the principle of government based on social contracts, not divine rights. The social contract was created to protect what Locke described as the natural rights of man: life, liberty and liberty, destroying denominational loyalties and allowing Presbyterians, Baptists and Methodists to leap ahead of all other Protestant rivals after 1780. It also destroyed the systems of established churches and recognized hierarchies, and replaced them with evangelicalism, which consisted primarily of missionary work and reporting conversion experiences to others. The Great Awakening and westward expansion provided the American colonies with certain characteristics that led to the development of an American culture that distinguished it from British culture. The ideas of the Enlightenment in Britain and the lasting effects of Anglicization in the American colonies eventually caused American culture to be founded on British beliefs, but westward expansion and the Great Awakening also provided further American ideals, which made the culture American indistinct from Great Britain.