rationalists

TASK 1
Puritans and the Rationalists differed in many very distinct ways. The Puritans believed in God not only creating the universe, but also controlling everything that happened here, on Earth. They believed that if one were to try to find meaning to certain aspects of the Earth, such as gravity, it demeans, or minimizes God’s power and ability. On the contrary, the Rationalists believed in ideas that were worlds different from the Puritans thoughts. The Rationalists basically believed that everything in the world had a purpose for being there, and that they had the right to find out that reason. They believed that, yes, there was in fact a God, but that he didn’t control things happening on Earth, and that it was up to us people to find out how things worked. Building on that idea, the Rationalists began to realize that with each new discovery, there were more questions, which led them to conclude that there was more and more to be figured out in the world that we are living in.

In modern times, there are thoughts that resemble both of these groups. A so called “Puritan” thought, would be like some modern day church goers. Like the Puritans begged for God to hand them an answer to a problem in the world on a silver platter, some church goers pray for things that they could achieve themselves. Some people pray for a spouse, or for a new job, when all the while they could have been getting out there and looking for a new job, or going around and trying to find someone to be in a relationship with.

Have you seen those bumper stickers that say something about being “anti bio terror”? A so called “Rationalist” thought in modern day would be like the bio terrorism labs. Some people believe that the only way to learn about certain diseases, etc is by facing them, almost literally, face to face. Like the rationalists faced oppression and people not liking their way of discovering things, these bio terrorists also face those same problems.

TASK 3
Benjamin Franklin was a good example of a Rationalist because of many reasons. On of them, being how he made a list of things that he wanted to improve on. What he did was make a list of them, and for the first week, he would pick one of the virtues, and work only on that one virtue all week. It states in the text that , "I made a little book, in which I allotted a page for each of the virtues. I ruled each page with red ink, so as to have seven columns, one for each day of the week, making each column with a letter of one of the virtue, on which line, and in its proper column, I might mark, by a little black spot, every fault I found upon examination to have been committed respecting that virtue upon that day." This sounds a bit crazy, and weird, but by doing this, he was finding a rational way to correct his faults. he wasn't blaming god for his imperfections, like the puritans would have done. Instead, like I said before, he acknowledged them and found a solution.





TASK 4
1.Always be honest
2.Don’t break a promise to god
3.Respect yourself
4.Live your life
5.Don't have any regrets
6.You can’t change the past, so don't try. Learn from it and focus on the present and the future.
7.You’re only young once, so live it up right
8.One is not born a woman, one becomes one, so don't think that you are automatically a women. Remember that there are certain aspects of being one that you should try to acquire.
9.There’s a little fire in every girl, so don’t let it go out while you’re still young
10.Recognize when you’re wrong and accept it
11.Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional, so remember that phrase through the hard times and persevere through the thick of things.
12.Never lose sight of what you want.
13.Everyone makes mistakes, so don't put yourself down thinking that you're the only one.

Now, I'm to answer a certain question that I'm not really sure how to answer. Do I believe that this list of virtues could help me achieve moral perfection? No, I don't think that there is such a thing as moral perfection. I think that you may be able to get kind of close, but there is NO such thing as perfection in general in my book. Also, even if it were possible to reach such a thing as moral perfection, I'm not sure that I could "perfectly" master all of the virtues above. The things that I chose that I believe I should improve on are of a wide variety, and I believe that it could take a life to master them. No one can be perfect, and hardly anyone can be close to it. Although that statement is true, by genuinely trying, we could get pretty close.(: