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

The end of The Age of ReasonIn the recent 18th century, the States was coming 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 aft(prenominal) the American Revolution, works of literature like Thomas Paines parking lot Sense, and Benjamin Franklins The Way to Wealth began to form a national train of thought among the early Americans. These views were somewhat opposite of those which were introduced finished Puritanism and The Enlightenment during the seventeenth century. However, in the end traditional religion overcame the mechanical press that was applied by the new schools of thought that floated around in the late 18th century.Thomas Paines Common Sense was more(prenominal) than right a piece of literature than planted the seed for deism, it also helped cheer up a nation to revolt against England, and claim independence from a organization which was deemed unfair and un fit to control the colonies. In Common Sense Paine take the people to believe that the Americans could not reconcile with England. He aim was to twisting the American anger away from the small parliamentary issues they were resisting against, and onto what he considered the main problem, which was the English Constitution itself. Paine argued that it was simple common sense for Americans to break all with a government that could produce such a corrupt a rationaler 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 prepossession in favor of a rotten arrangement of government will disable us from discerning a in force(p) one. With Paine making this remark, I translate 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 point in time the colonies we re zilch more than miniature countries existing next to each other. As the parole of the pamphlet spread during that year, a strong sense of national concurrence 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 commode Adams. Jefferson used ideas borrowed from theories by John Locke for example, governments are created to protect the rights of life, liberty, and property.