Modern World History: The Enlightenment.
What is the best idea that came out of the Enlightenment? Is it good to count only on reason? Should we count only on emotion or superstition?
posted by bcoffman | 12:09 PM
4 Comments:
I think the best idea that came out of the enlightenment was natural rights, which gave equal rights to everyone, which is great. I also think that going of reason is much better than going off emotion or superstition, because neither of those two can be proven right or wrong.
I like Thomas Hobbes' description of the pendulum swinging between (essentially) religion, and science. I also agree that in order to have a better understanding of life in general, the pendulum should not sway to either extreme, but rest in the middle. In other words, it is best to be accepting of both science and religion. As Albert Einstein once said "Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind."
The best idea that came from the Enlightement was Voltaire's philosophy of religous tolerance. Voltaire was correct when he wrote that all major problems in the world were the cause of conflicting religions. Genocide, jihads, ethnic cleansing, even the crusades are all examples of violence caused by religion. He argued that if we are all accepting of every religion, they would no longer conflict on such a large scale. He also argued that because of this, we should place secular values over religous values, making all people equal in the realm of religion. This is also a great idea because, this philosophy is responsible for the freedom of religion in our first ammendment today. Pat on the back Voltaire.
I believe that the best idea that came out of the Enlightenment is Locke’s social contract theory. This was one of, if not the first ideas that gave the people the right to control their government. It said that if a government was not protecting your rights than in was your duty to abolish the government. In so many of the previous eras, government was controlled by a single or small group of people and was directed toward improving the rights of the wealthy upper classes, and this was a chance to change that. I think that we should only count on reason for an extent and use emotions and trust ourselves to really make the best decisions. Superstition hinders our thoughts and can only be negative. I do not believe that superstitions affect our lives they just make life more complicated.
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