What was the philosophy behind the movement? What ideas from that were used by Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and others when writing the Declaration of Independance and the Constitution?
2006-10-05 20:03:32 · 4 answers · asked by Skippy 6 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
sorry for the typos and poor wording. I'm probably too sleepy to be asking, but what the heck!
2006-10-05 20:04:15 · update #1
The Founding Fathers of the USA were influenced by the Enlightenment to provide for human rights, civil rights, and the seperation of church and state.
They believed that the institutions of religion were riddled with superstition and irrational thinking. They were pious men who believed that morality could be rationally deduced. They believed in God - they believed that Jesus was a great moral philosopher. Ideas such as, "Let Jesus come into your heart" and "Jesus saves" would have been alien and irrational to them. They were deists, not theists. They would be shocked at present-day thinking and would have mourned the consequences of that thinking, e.g., the fact that America has devolved to become the least humane to her own citizens of any nation in the world, to become imperial and authoritarian to the rest of the world, and to become the home of the worst religious intolerance and arrogance on earth.
The Enlightenment is past. We are in a new Dark Age.
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2006-10-05 22:24:39 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
because lots of the Founding Fathers were persons of their respective church properties could no longer be dismissed out of hand. also, they needed the freedom to worship God how ever each man or woman needed. this signifies that any one sorts of worship is authorities safeguard. at the same time as will the Liberals do not ignore that by skill of scuffling with hostile to Christianity you're scuffling with hostile to the variety and the invoice of Rights. you're best that lots of the founding fathers the position better effective research than maximum human beings are at present and they borrowed heavily from previous cultures to create what they became hoping for replaced into the perfect Republic. they'd be delivering their graves with each and each of the socialist reforms happening and the eliminating of all freedoms.
2016-11-26 20:32:15 · answer #2 · answered by hariwon 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
they probably recognized the truth for what is was??and wanted to do something about it....
2006-10-05 20:10:32 · answer #3 · answered by jsbrunette 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_enlightenment
2006-10-05 20:06:02 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋