Religious Justification Is Not Justified In American Literature

Humans have always had to justify their actions to others and themselves. This justification leads human beings to rationalize their actions even if they would be considered morally wrong. They provide a comfort in the hearts of men to banish the guilt inside of them as a result of their actions. The ante-bellum period of American literature gives numerous examples of this type of justification. Some of these justifications appear in Wells William Brown’s Clotel, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” and Thomas Jefferson’s “Notes on the State of Virginia”. All of these literary pieces focus on justification in terms of either religious reasons or scientific reasons. For hundreds of years, human beings have relied on some form of religious

It can exist in any time period but will often retain its shape. Once of the most prime examples of religious justification today are the extremist bombings in the Middle East. According to the article entitled “Fully Committed: Suicide Bombers’ Motivation and the Quest for Personal Significance” it is important to understand that the suicide bombings are partially about “the expectation of gaining status and respect as a martyr - ” (Kruglanski 335). Suicide bombers are justifying their actions by using their own religion and the religious stature that will be rewarded to them for their actions. The word martyr has a direct religious context. According to the Oxford English Dictionary the word martyr means a person who undergoes death or great suffering for a faith, belief, or cause, or through devotion to some object. The suicide bombers are focused solely on their religion in their actions, which therefore translates into one of a small number of justifications. However even in these modern times we can still rely on scientific justification as well. One of the hottest topics when talking about stem cell research is embryonic stem cell research. According to The New England Journal of Medicine there are two primary stances that critics take in regards to stem cell research: “some hold that despite its worthy ends, stem-cell research is wrong because it involves the destruction of human embryos; others

Two of the most common forms are religious justification and scientific justification. These justifications are a gateway that a reader can use to depict not only the author’s ideas by also their actions. Everything that we do in our live we justify, unconsciously or consciously. Religious justification can perhaps focus more on our spiritual well being as we see in “Young Goodman Brown” and Clotel. In both these stories all of the people using religious justification do so to appease their peace of mind in relation to their actions. The examples of scientific justification in “Notes on the State of Virginia” have a similar effect though they are more focused on creating mental peace instead of spiritual peace. No matter what type of peace is achieved through justification, in the end all that matters is that justification is a tool used to bring sense to one’s own