Age Of Reason Essay -- essays research papers

Stein 2 Certain Individuals that lived in the period of time know as the Age of Reason discovered many knew inventions and advancements to improve the quality of life. When experimented with, these advantages brought forth knew ideas to extraordinary people who forever changed the way we look at life. Although many people found these discoveries to bring a great revival to mankind, others rejected these new improvements and felt as if they were defying god. These years were full of discoveries, conflicts, and new visions that of the world. The age of reason brought on many changes to religious, political, scientific, and literary aspects of the eighteenth century. Ever since the beginning of time, religion has been the dominating source of reason. People have turned to prayer and spirituality for a sense of control and understanding in their lives. Not until the years of the age of reason was there an alternative proposed for a better method of interpreting things. This alternative method was science. Although scientific thought spread rapidly, religion was not forgotten. Religion controlled many things science could not. It gave people a sense of why they are here and why things occur. This understanding results in sanity and calmness. During the age of reason, people who kept religion flourishing were Ethan Allen, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and Patrick Henry. In Thomas Paine’s The Crisis, No. 1, he uses vivid imagery and rhetorical techniques to persuade the audience into believing his point. â€Å"Even the expression is impious; for so unlimited a power can belong only to God.†(Paine). In Ethan Allen’s Reason only Oracle of Man, reason is taught through the eyes of an oracle, or someone whom God speaks to the people through. A religious revival that flourished around this point in history was called Deism. Deism beliefs differed in many ways than the traditional religions for it’s major concept was that God spoke through everyone, not only a particular chosen one. Franklin, Paine, and Jefferson all participated as active Deists, abandoning their previous religion from which they were raised. A key aspect that attracted many people to Deism was that its goal was to achieve goodness and prosperity throughout the world. Although this way of thinking seemed to have no faults, there was the share of those who rejected this idea. As rationalism spread in th... ...cements made in the political movement of the age of reason are what give the basis and shape of our successful governments today. The age of reason also contributed a great literary works. Gaining more common sense, authors were able to use more abstract thinking in their writing and talk about truth rather then fantasy or fiction. Some of the great authors of this time include James Madison and Alexander Hamilton (the Federalist Papers), Franklin and Jefferson’s Autobiographies, and Michel Guillaume Jean de Crevecoeur (Letters from an American farmer). As literary works were at their peaks, poetry was on the duller, unoriginal side. It was often written in direct imitations of the British and had no thought or reason behind it. Great poetry would be soon to come in the age of romanticism.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The age of reason brought on many changes to religious, political, scientific, and literary aspects of the eighteenth century. With advancements, improvements and intelligence improving rapidly through everyone who lived at in that time, the age of reason was more of a turning point in the course of history then just a period of time.