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Why Is The American Enlightenment Important In The 1600's?

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In the 1700’s, economic life and social life in America began to expand which gave people the time and urge to partake in intellectual and cultural quest. This allowed Americans to participate in a huge transition that affected a large portion of the Western part of America. They were moving toward the Enlightenment period and away from medieval. “This was important for American history because Enlightenment ideals played a substantial role in the American Revolution and in the development of the American political system that was to come” (Shultz, 2014, p. 69). The American Enlightenment began because of the European Enlightenment. The European Enlightenment was a movement to prioritize the human capacity. Copernicus began to question the fundamental beliefs from the 1500’s, which was the belief of spiritual and secular rulers, humans incapacity for social change and that a person’s time on earth is a temporary journey that leads to eternal salvation or eternal damnation. By the 1600’s educated people began to question that natural laws not divine laws were the laws that governed society. …show more content…

Locke believed that one’s character was defined by their environment more so than it was by than their divine decree. Rousseau believed that people had natural rights to life, liberty and property. “The key Enlightenment economist was Adam Smith, who postulated a natural balance in the economy determined by laws of supply and demand” (Shultz, 2014, p. 69). These thinkers led people to believe that it was possible for progress, that they had a right to reject authority if their rights were denied and that they had a stake in their own life. “The Enlightenment was a fundamental transformation in the way people in the Western world thought about themselves and the societies in which they lived” (Shultz, 2014, p.

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America was becoming more secular. Man now had a social contract with their government because they could form their own government. This change in beliefs was significant because it led to the development of self-government, the creation of three branches and the system of checks and balances. The colonists no longer saw themselves as Englishmen but rather Americans because they were now in charge of their own laws and customs. They were no longer focused on what the English wanted but rather what they wanted for themselves.

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Some ideas that generated during the Enlightenment was the fact that reason was more powerful over religion and the idea of Deism. During the Great Awakening, the fact that there was a lack of individual engagement in church services also challenged religious and political authorities in the British colonies. American people would now begin to think for themselves and they would soon realize that they didn't need Britain to function. This would ultimately lead to Britain having less authority over the colonies and therefore would weaken their influence in the colonial political society, while also losing their strict religious control over the colonies due to the idea of religious freedom that the Enlightenment brought

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The Enlightenment did many things

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The Enlightenment began in Europe in the 18th century; American colonists believed that God’s greatest gift to mankind was reason which allowed people to follow the moral teachings of Jesus. The Enlightenment challenged the role of religion and divine right and this helped Colonial America to see that it was possible to challenge God and divine right. The movement challenged the role of God and allowed people to see that they were important and had the ability to shape their own lives. The Great Awakening ended up weakening the importance of clergy as believers started relying on their own conclusions.

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The sixteenth century America is primarily dominated by the Puritan idealism, but slowly through the year’s things are changing both in the religion and culture. In human nature the constant need for change is captivating, a change towards something new and different than the current. The events of the growing and changing eighteenth century America reflect just that. Ideas of the Enlightenment take deep root in the transformation of ideas about human’s relationship to God and to nature. Therefore, a deeply religious society starts transforming into a more secular culture, but religion still has quite a large influence.

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Locke helped shape the United States government and many other nations governing systems around the world. Locke believed all men were born with the rights of life or your natural rights of liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and a government should protect and respect the rights of individuals. Under the protection of your government he believed “whom the society hath set over itself, with this express or tacit trust, that it shall be employed for their good, and the preservation of their property: now this power, which every man has in the state of nature, and which he parts with to the society in all such cases where the society can secure him, is to use such means, for the preserving of his own property, as he thinks good, and nature allows him; and to punish the breach of the law of nature in other” (Document C). By introducing natural rights the common people gained more power through an equality between all men. Natural rights gave people the right to possess and protect their own property both physical items and personal ideals.

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Enlightenment was a time period that revolved around philosophy, science, and society, and is less focused on religion. Enlightenment includes a concept proposed by the philosopher John Locke that all humans, when they are born, are entitled to basic human rights. The Enlightenment also includes the thought that things in the universe are constant, leading away from such a strong reliance on God. The concept of Enlightenment inspired many proceeding declarations, including the USA’s declaration because it encouraged equality to all men. John Locke was an Enlightenment thinker who proposed that as humans, we are entitled to basic rights and that when we are born we are blank canvases and are thereafter altered by our surroundings.

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For example Locke, argued that people should be allowed to choose their own government, as it will have a greater chance of not failing. Locke said, “The people are at liberty to provide for themselves, by erecting a new legislative,... for the society can never,... lose the native and original right it has to preserve itself, which can only be a done by a settled legislative and a fair and impartial execution of the laws made by it” (Document A). John is stating that it shouldn't be the government who makes all the decisions but the people as it is their right to do so. John Locke was just one of the four figures in the enlightenment that made an impact.

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The Enlightenment was a period of time in which revolutions are bound to take place. When new thinking arises within a population, sooner or later people will begin to question authority and make their own decisions on government, laws, religion, and the way life is lived in general. As soon as influential thinkers such as Montesquieu Rousseau, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Thomas Jefferson, and many others began spreading their new ways of thinking with the rest of the people under British control, the American Revolution was born. Enlightenment thinkers such as these used their work to influence colonists to break away from Britain’s control and create a new form of American government. New ideas of government and thoughts of rebellion were

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Without the Enlightenment, the United States of America would not have had the same Democratic government that it does today. This is because the United States government was strongly based upon the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment was the period of western culture, stretching from the the seventeenth century through the eighteenth century, by dramatic revolutions in science, philosophy, society and politics. The Philosophers main idea was to improve the modern world by people granting individuals freedom in areas of social, government, and economic improvements. First of all, the philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft wanted to modernize social living.

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he Enlightenment was a seventeenth- and eighteenth-century international movement in ideas and sensibilities, emphasizing the exercise of critical reason as opposed to religious dogmatism or unthinking faith. It developed along with the rise of scientific thinking independent of religious thought and stressed the importance of nature and the natural order as a source of knowledge. In reaction to the religious wars of Europe, Enlightenment thinkers defended religious tolerance and religious freedom. Their emphasis on intellectual freedom and human rights led to a conflict between the advocates of these new ideas and the political and religious establishments in Europe, most dramatically in France. The Enlightenment in America, more moderate than in Europe, influenced both religious and political thought throughout the colonies.

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Enlightenment and Great Awakening In America, as the society aged, it was influenced by two cultural phenomena. One was based on intellectual while the other was religion. As the 1700s advanced, American treasure improved, the wealthy spend their money on books. They were exposed to new ideas coming from Europe. On the other hand, the Great Awakening appealed to the less wealthy because it was for people’s emotions.

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Although different, both the Enlightenment and the Great Awakening had a powerful impact on colonial society in America (Schultz, 2010). First, the American Enlightenment was a shift in thinking from the old style of medieval thought to prioritizing the human capacity for reason as the highest form of attainment. Simply put, the Enlightenment promoted scientific inquiry and reasoning to all areas including politics and even religion (Caron & Wulf, 2013). Exploring the scientific reasoning behind religion brought both rejection and support for the Enlightenment from various religious leaders (Schultz, 2010). However, the American Enlightenment did not dissuade the colonists from seeking religion, in fact, while the Enlightenment did promote thinkers to explore a balance between science and religion, not many atheists or agnostics were born from it.

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The first half of the 19th century saw a major cultural change. The Enlightenment movement was beginning to lose its traction. This was because people felt that Enlightenment ideals focused too much on the community as a whole, and that individuals were being overlooked as a result. People who were undermined by society, such as women and African Americans, supported the idea that

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Without the central ideas and figures of the Enlightenment, our country would have been drastically different since these concepts shape the country in its formative years(Smith

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