Philosophers During The Enlightenment Era

The Enlightment era was an intellectual movement, which emphasized reason, skepticism, and also individualism. This movement stood its ground against religion and posed a quest to find truth. There were philosophers who brought up new ideas and perspective on human nature including religion. Understanding the natural world and the role of mankind based on the base of Reason.

Philosophers during this era wanted proof of Gods existence. They did not want to accept what the bible was saying. This caused conflicts between the church and scientific revolution. The Enlightment believed that there should not be a higher power of authority if there is not proof to back it up. For example, the Pope, why should the Pope be a higher archery if he is

They were both said to be firm believers in Christianity so you cant question what somebody believes no matter what they say in contrast to it. “It matters not what [concepts] a man adheres to, he can still be pious. His piety, the divine in his feelings, may be better than his [concepts], and his desire to place the essence of piety in [concepts] only makes him misunderstand himself” (Handout I). All in all, there is always going to be controversy when someone questions a religion in some aspect, but if they say they are for that religion and have the same over all beliefs you have to respect what one might feel about certain

He is considered the father of sociology, which is the study of human behavior. This led him into to same equation question what religion is and what the purpose of it was. Durkheim believed that human beings are not just individuals who live just to live, but rather we belong to a group or a clan, which represents us. This means that religion had no supernatural power or some god out there. In Durkheim’s own words he states religion as “religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden” (Pals 96). He believed that these practices are what unified people and communities as a whole to come into one nation. This is exactly what church is meant to do, the practices that are done in the churches and the prayers. This is the same beliefs and perspective that Durkheim and Marx shared. They both thought religion was nothing more than an illusion. Religion to Marx was the devil to a religious person and religion to Durkheim was non-existent as religion is to an atheist. It seems as if Durkheim wasn’t interested in the supernatural experiences or the divine. He just viewed religion as a way of bring people together. Kind of the same way Marx put it, religion brings people emotionally together, and gives them this support system or backbone on which it could rely on. This brings the organization and control or which these groups (human