Essay About Great Awakening And Purpose Of This Essay

The Great Awakening and the Enlightenment
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The Enlightenment and the Great Awakening are two primary European movements that
drifted across the Atlantic into America between the 1730 s and the 1760 s. They caused many
changes in the lives of humans. The purpose of this essay is to compare and contrast The Great
Awakening and The Enlightment and also how it made a difference in peoples everyday lives.
The Enlightenment emphasized the power of human reason to shape the world. Its
purpose was to reform society using reason and advance knowledge through science. It caused
many people to be less honorable towards god than they had ever seen before. They felt that they
could think, analyze, and do for themselves and not everything was done through god. This also
created the religion of Pietism, which appealed to the hearts, not the minds of the followers.
The Great Awakening was an updating religious rebirth in the 1740s, which attempts to
bring the importance of god together with what the people had learned through the
Enlightenment. Many people began to study the world in which they lived. In the early 18th
century, many Christians believed that the earth was the center of the universe and that god
interceded directly concerning human affairs. When science proved different, it changed the
views of many educated people. John Locke did not believe that all infants were born with god
given thoughts. He stated that the mind was gradually filled with information through the senses
and through experiences that you encounter. Benjamin Franklin was another Enlightenment
thinker in America. He was more influenced by Enlightenment literature than the bible.
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