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The Age Of Enlightenment

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The Age of Enlightenment was a movement of the 18th century that introduced ideas that strayed from the traditional ideas of the church. In fact, some philosophers rejected Christianity, arguing that it drew focus away from creating a better life on earth and instead promised people a false after world. Such ideas were exemplified by philosophers such as Friedrich Schiller, who argued that thought and reason were superior to one’s senses or feelings. Likewise, many intellectual groups valued the individual conscience and ability to reason over religious inspiration. While religion was being challenged in Europe, across the Atlantic, the American Revolution rejected the monarch and created way for a representative government. These ideas are prevalent in and developed in the writings of Jeremy Bentham. Born in 1748, Bentham was an English philosophe who pushed heavily for social reform. In 1798, he helped form the Thames River Police to prevent theft on the Thames River, and in 1823, he co-founded a liberal publication titled the Westminster Review. Bentham held particularly progressive and even radical ideas that were generally not presented by other philosophers of the Enlightenment era. …show more content…

He supported freedom of expression, arguing that it brought forth social reform. On the topic of the Protestant Reformation, Bentham writes, “It is freedom of inquiry which has corrected the errors of the ages of ignorance, and brought back religion towards its true object.” He refers to the corrupt Roman Catholic that provoked the Reformation, and the consequent simplification of faith in Protestantism. Bentham argues that religion was transformed as a result of inquiry and questioning by the people of the Roman Catholic church. He contrasts this more direct faith resulting from freedom of inquiry with the cause of the Thirty Years’

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