Evidence In Your World?
Can you find evidence of Puritanical thinking and Rationalist ideology
in today's world? If so, where? What do you think about these ideas? How
do they impact you? Do they connect with your worldview? Please provide
lucid examples to support your claims. This blog post response is due
no later than 2:30p.m. on Wednesday, October 26th, 2016. (Resource: Eras In American Literature)
posted by Greg T at Wednesday, October 12, 2016
18 Comments:
The perfect example of Puritans nowadays are Amish people. Amish people are Christian church fellowships with Swiss Anabaptist origins. The Amish are known for simple living, plain dress, and reluctance to adopt many conveniences of modern technology. 80% of the Amish people live in Pennsylvania.The Amish lifestyle is regulated by the Ordnung (German, meaning: order), which differs slightly from community to community, and, within a community, from district to district.I try to be very respectful when it comes to religion but I don't like to be an extremist in anything that I do and Puritans in this case tend to be extremists.They don't connect with my worldview because nowadays my way of thinking and everyone else's is not "Ordnung" for them. The matrix is a movie that is a great example of Rationalism nowadays. It shows how we can not be positive of what is real, how what you receive to be real could be your senses deceiving you. All you know for sure is that you are real. In this movie, it is shown how the mental (mind) can control the material (body) in another world. Another example of rationalism today is mathematical equations. An example of this would be trigonometry. These formulas were created by Descartes by reasoning and creating a formula to find the true (or real) values of specific angles that the human eye cannot calculate just by looking at it. Descartes believed this was a way to bypass the potential errors that the sense can give and to use true reason to calculate the real value of specific variables.They make me rethink my way of thinking. They do not connect with my worldview because like I said before I don't like extremes or extremists.
You can find Puritanical thinking and Rationalist ideology in today's world, just about anywhere. It is on the streets, in stores everywhere. There are people everywhere with different ideas. You have the people that believe in something to make themselves have a certain amount of morals and to lead them into there lives, and you have people who live by words like ‘ whatever happens, happens.’ not because of a god or other belief system, but behind reasoning and where your at, at the right time. It shouldn't be about what I think but what others think about it. We are all humans with millions of different ideas on how we are supposed to live our lives. These ideas impact me majorly because my whole family would be categorized as Puritanical thinkers and I would be categorized as a Rationalist. We fight a lot about it too.
I think that a lot of political choices that are made in our country are based on puritanical views. People's choices and votes often depend on their religious values, which is completely fine but they think that people should do things based on their values. An example of rationalism that I can think of is when people have debates. They try to use factual knowledge to come to a conclusion about something. I think that the puritanical way of thinking is going out of style, people these days are thinking more proactively and using reason instead of opinion to come to that conclusion. Rationalism is in line with my views because I believe it has more room for you to think and understand others.
I think there is rationalistic thinking going on in the world because, there are some people who think they are perfect, people who think they are the best and they couldn't get any better. Some athletes might think this or people of great wealth, they see how successful they become ad they think they are perfect human beings. I think there are examples of Puritanism when it comes to religion because there are crazy religious people that have some insane beliefs and live life in a very strange way, cults are an example of Puritanism because they follow rules and they are all unified, people who are in cults are very un idealistic.
Puritanical and Rational thinking is very apparent in society today. The two groups of people clash and fight with another. I see this today in our political debates, groups of friends, division between companies, religious fights, and divisions between nationwide beliefs. I think these ideas are to be expected with a group of imperfect humans. People are allowed to have opinions and so they will. Both ideas make sense, they are rational, and they give people security in their life. Both rationalism and puritanism affect me because they change how I see things and what my opinions about the world around me are. I can’t relate to a specific idea, because I think there is a fine balance between puritanism and rationalism. Believing in a higher power, but also believing you are capable of helping yourself. Both of these ideas are very apparent today in our society.
An example of Puritan beliefs that exists today is the Ideals of conformists. I know this sounds far fetched but, Conformists conform to the norms of everyday society and although they're beliefs may be partially rational, they will always stop looking for answers as soon as they conform. An example of a Rationalist ideal today is the idea of free college. I see this as rational because to me free education makes sense. Although it may hurt the government and Universities it is more important to help the people living in the country rather than oppress. Making Universities free would give equal opportunity to families living in a poor environment, and show all the rich families who pay to go to college so there children can party.
Today, puritanical views are not far fetched and can be found. They are just simply seen in a more subtle way. A lot of political choices are based on puritanical views. The way people go about their lives can be dependent on religious beliefs. This includes voting. Most puritanical people are those who belong to religious groups and are extremist in that. Rationalism is more of how I live simply because instead of opinions it is more reasonable and helps bring conclusion from questioning and inferring rather than doing what you are told.
The world today is becoming more and more practical, through the progression of the human race, there is an ever-going pursuit for knowledge and the truth. Knowledge is an incredible resource, that truly drives people to become more sagacious and better than their previous selves. But there is a conflict with the pursuit of knowledge, and that is what differentiates rationalists and puritans, to figure out whose belief's are the truth. Now today, it is with common knowledge that rationalism are based on truth, and while there is no way to disprove the idea of a higher deity, puritans base their lives around pleasing their god, and living a sin free life. Even though these ideas contradict each other they can be seen together in many aspects of our daily lives. Most notable in Politics. The government is a very practical system that works to serve and protect everyone, and they base this on the very real concepts that work within the rights of people. It can be argued that the government should not have religion influence their choices and we should base our choices not or a higher power but a moral that we as a people create. But the governing choose to uphold tradition and religion, which is okay, just as long as no one is persecuted for a different one, and it is not forced on others.
Yes, I think that there are many examples of both puritanical and rationalist ideas. But first, What are these two ideas and what do they mean? A puritanical idea is defined as a belief that is strictly based off of religion and only religion has the answer; whereas a rationalist idea is considered to be a belief that is back by knowledge and proof. In today's world both can be found in political parties. For example democrats are more of rationalists, because they try to back their beliefs with knowledge and proof. Republican conservatives normally, not all but most have a faith based reason as to why they are conservative. I think that these beliefs are both very real and alive in today’s world. Yes they connect with my worldwide view because I see both everyday and hear both sides. Examples of puritanism would include faith based beliefs as the core of conservative republicans.
Some evidence of puritanical thinking in the world today is the concept of religion as a whole. Puritanism exists in common religious beliefs today for obvious reasons, all followers believe in a higher power and some leave their problems to be solved by the being they believe in, instead of handling it themselves. As far as its impact on me, there is none. I hold no religious beliefs and think that beliefs of government officials should not affect their views on things, because it does. Puritanism does not connect to my worldview because I do not follow any religions and I think that people should solve problems on their own, think rationally, and not wait and hope for some higher figure to do it for them.
Yes there is both puritanism and rationalism in this world today. The biggest world wide view is in the political parties in the United States. Puritanism is on the side of Republican and have faith base facts to back up their theories and that's why Republicans are so conservative. While on the other side of the spectrum, Democrats are very factual based and knowledgeable thinking. Both believe in higher power like rationalism is more about government and proof and Republicans are more conservative and more about faith and back up arguments with faith based believes. The spectrum of both is very wide and have a lot of middle people and people who believe in both. We face this everyday with school and with our parents and its our decision on what we decide and when it comes down to voting and what we believe.
I belive there is both puritanism and rationalism in this world today. I know many people in my life that support Puritanism because they are heavily involved in religion and study religion every day. I also feel that there are many people that support rationalism because they believe that you need proof to prove things. On the other hand, I believe the category that the most people fit into is the "middle/I don't know" category. When people think of religion for example Christianity, some that are not as knowledgeable think that christianity is a faith to believe in god, and god will do things for you. When is reality you pray to God and pray for things like guidance, instead of praying for things to be done for you. This is why I believe most people fall into this category, because they just don't know why they are praying, and what the purpose is for, and how to pray. In my life I feel like im more on the puritanism side, although I still believe you need to do things on your own, and not rely just on god.
When thinking about Purity and rationalist thoughts in today's world, The US government really stands out to me because they have a mixture of both purists and rationalist thoughts apparent in their values and works. The most notable instance of the government having purest thoughts is on our currency. On every US bill printed or coin minted, the phrase “in god we trust” is in big bold letters. Another instance is in the Pledge of Allegiance when we say “one nation under god”. Both of these show puritanical beliefs in a government that is based off of rational thoughts and ideas. The US government was built by the rational minds of people like Ben Franklin who is a big believer in rationalism. I find it these ideas interesting and I do agree with portions of both of them but rationalism more so. Rationalism impacts my life because I believe in making decisions based on reason and what I believe is right. These don't really align with my worldview because people will always be flawed no matter what they believe in.
In today’s day in age I think that a good example of the difference between puritanism and rationalism is the “In God we Trust” quote on money. This is something that we see every day on our money, which is not something that you have to be religious to use. So this brings up the question should rationalism and puritanism views be mixed like that. Some other examples could be people with Religious views based on people that view everything from a scientific point of view. People with the puritanism view on life tend to rely on God or whatever higher power they believe in whereas people with a Rational view on things tend to just believe facts and science and they don’t tend to rely on anything or anyone to answer their questions. Everything in today’s day in age there are typically two groups of people that have very different opinions on things, such as politics. I think that it's good that we have different opinions because that motivates people to make improvements and stand up for what they believe in rather than just agreeing with what everyone else says.
There are numerous examples of Puritanical thinking and Rationalist ideology in today's world. One of the most common examples of Puritanism is the phrase, "In God we Trust," printed on US currency. Rationalist ideology is taught much more then Puritanical thinking in public schools however. Classes like Biology and Chemistry explain why things happen based off of evidence and logic. Everyday, everyone needs to decide whether to believe things based off more rationalist ideology or puritanical thinking. Examples of both ideologies affect how people decide which to chose all of the time.
As any other country in the world, modern America is heavily influenced by its past, including puritanical and rationalistic roots. Forms of these roots consist in everything from government to culture.
Puritanical thought exists in many forms. From the government we see phrases as “In God we Trust” on our currency and recite “one nation under God” everyday in schools. Both of these examples are proof that not only have we carried on the past of puritanism, but have followed forward with it. The phrase “In God we Trust” was added in 1953, and the following year “under God” was added to our Pledge of Allegiance. Both of these events occurred almost four centuries after the creation of the guiding movement. Another example of puritanical thought present in today’s culture is in athletics. Athlete’s thanking God after winning a huge game is so common that it is possible to place bets on whether or not it is going to be the first person they thank. More often than not, the betting odds are in favor of such an event.
Rational thought also exists today. Ironically enough, evidence in rational thought can be found in athletics. America’s favorite sport, football, occurs almost exclusively on Sundays, and believe it or not church attendance drops everywhere, every year come football season. This shows that most people value sports over religion. Another example of rationalistic thinking is in our schools, who are also required to recognize a nation united under god. Over the past 50 years, the topic of separation of church and state has been debated by many. The ruling: you are not allowed to teach religion in schools. Rationalistic thinking has created this ruling because of the value placed on proven fact over scripture.
Puritanical thinking and Rationalist ideology are still present in the society. Puritanical thinking is still practiced in some religions. Some extremists follow what their bible says is right even if society doesn’t agree with them. Rational ideology is present in the government where as they would not act on a decision unless there is a good reason or outcome from that decision. It is also present in debates as where everyone would have their own reason to a cause.
Yes we can find examples Puritanical thinking and and Rationalist ideology in today's world. I can find many examples, One of the most common examples of Puritanism is the phrase, "In God we Trust," printed on US currency. We have many things even in everyday life that are Rationalist ideology. Daily life in school classes such as biology are all about evolution and logic and reason. This kind of stuff do effect what I think and because I'm a christian it makes me think about things that I believe and makes me want to know more.
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