Hi all,
I wanted to get this posted yesterday, but somebody brought a nasty germ to class last week, and I spent most of the day with Kleenex and chicken soup! Hope you're all well and enjoying the great weather!
This week, we'll finish up our look at The Catcher in the Rye, and then begin a brief project called "This I Believe About Being American". Check out the original National Public Radio site to get an idea of what's coming up; here's the link:
http://thisibelieve.org/
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Tiffany Jones Period: D 9/21/09 HOMEWORK
ReplyDeleteIn the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, small pox was part of life just like AIDS is today. The disease spread quickly and anybody who got it had became disfigured, an it was a very fatal disease. During the time of the smallpox epidemic, cotton Mather was working on the first scholarly essay on medicine written in America. He was a puritan and thought that sin was the main cause for sickness. He tried to find and heard of cures made or researched by people from other cultures and religions. But Bostons medical community was violent and bombed his house. Rationalists are similar to Puritans through the act that they “ discovered god through the Medium of the natural world.'” people thought that it made more sense to believe that everybody at anytime could discover natural laws through god given powers of reason. That belief was called deism, which was shared by a lot o eighteenth century thinkers including most of the founders of America.
After reading this text, my perspective on puritans is that they are kind of close minded and think that everything that happens in the world happens because God made it that way. They never fully allow their minds to think of thinks that they would consider the impossible. Such as the fact that we may have evolved from primates and more science related topics similar to those things.
Quick write: I think I do see signs of Puritanism these days. Like how some people don't like the fact that there are other religions and beliefs besides theirs, and the way some people view politics and how they belie that certain things will cleanse and rid your soul of sin.