The end of The Age of Reason :: essays research papers

The end of The Age of ReasonIn the late 18th century, America was approach path to a standstill in religious belief, by the 1790s an estimated 10% of the non-Indian population of America were members of a formal church. Before and after the American Revolution, whole works of literature like Thomas Paines Common gumption, and gum benzoin Franklins The Way to Wealth began to form a national train of ideal among the early Americans. These views were somewhat opposite of those which were introduced through Puritanism and The Enlightenment during the seventeenth century. However, in the end traditional religion overcame the pressure that was applied by the new schools of panorama that floated around in the late 18th century.Thomas Paines Common Sense was more than just a piece of literature than planted the bug for deism, it also helped inspire a nation to revolt against England, and claim independence from a government which was deemed unfair and unfit to control the colonies. In Common Sense Paine led the people to believe that the Americans could not reconcile with England. He aim was to turn the American anger away from the small parliamentary issues they were resisting against, and onto what he considered the briny problem, which was the English Constitution itself. Paine argued that it was simple common superstar for Americans to break completely with a government that could produce such a corrupt a regulation as George III. In closing his writing Paine argues And as a man, who is attached to a prostitute, is unfitted to choose or judge of a wife, so any preconceived opinion in favor of a rotten constitution of government will disable us from discerning a good one. With Paine making this remark, I record Paine to mean that the island kingdom of England was no more fit to rule the American Continent, than a satellite was fit to rule the sun.This pamphlet was released in January 1776, at that invest in time the colonies were nothing more than miniat ure countries existing next to each other. As the news of the pamphlet spread during that year, a strong sense of national unity and the need for independence from the English began to form in the peoples minds.Later that same year, Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, with help from Benjamin Franklin and John Adams. Jefferson used ideas borrowed from theories by John Locke for example, governments are created to protect the rights of life, liberty, and property.