Annotated Bibliography: Modern World And The Prince

Mohammadreza Salimaroony
Student number: 212180634

Essay 1

Humanities 1720: The Roots of Western culture
Power and Obedience Reading the book Modern World and The Prince made me to recognize some of the patterns that are going on around myself and others, these patterns are consisted of for example, how some concepts are formed and how they have changed or stayed the same without any changes. It is interesting to know how people reacted to Galileo’s book and found it against their religious belief because his book was about the idea of heliocentric solar system while church thought earth is at the center of the solar system. An important point to consider is science and religion should not be mixed together. Knowing about how and

The book The Prince states that church gets its power from accumulating wealth, using armed forces and having control over people (page 28, chapter XI.) Machiavelli in this chapter focuses on how the catholic church gaining its power is not very different than how princes gain their power. In my opinion there is an irony in this chapter since he says “These princes a lone have territories which they do not defend, and subjects whom they do not govern; yet their territories are not taken from them through not being defended, nor are their subjects concerned at not being governed, or led to think of throwing off their allegiance; nor is it in their power to do so. Accordingly these Princedoms alone are secure and happy. But inasmuch as that are sustained by agencies of a higher nature than the mind of man can reach. I forbear to speak of them.” Because even though Machiavelli states ecclesiastical principalities in his book but there seems to be a sarcastic tone in his writing which indicates Machiavelli is against church and politics being combined together and the sarcastic tone being; states ruled under the ecclesiastical principles (god and catholic religion) do not need to be governed or defended because there is a higher power thus, people or principalities are happy and safe and no one is trying to take away theses states. Church would suppress any idea, information or scientific fact that would contradict with its

In today’s life we witness less force to be involved in making people to obey to authority but that force undergo a transformation and we can see it such as, this the way to do things, or this is the law, my boss said or to show faithfulness, these can be some examples in that regard. Another significant point is, since people are following the laws, they would have these beliefs that they are not doing anything wrong. Eventually people learn to do morally corrupted acts without any concerns or questioning that act. Our obedience to god demonstrates our faith, and according to Holman's Illustrated Bible dictionary a brief definition of biblical obedience is "to hear God's word and act accordingly." This does not mean people should just follow orders, commands and directions from people in religious authority. Those who are religious should distinguish between what makes them faithful to God and what people in religious