The Radical Enlightenment Hated Everything That Was Religion

People of this time wanted to find out the truth they didn’t want to live in a world of past secrets and lies. These people did not care what they were going to hear as long as it was the truth and nothing but the truth. A man named Immanuel Kant, a philosopher during this time, encouraged people to be open minded, to not hide from the truth, and be able to think for oneself. He and others used the power of reason in their life. Sort of like how I said power of reason the Enlightenment was also called the Age of Reasoning. Since these people were getting into science and reasoning there had been many new tools and ways of believing. Deist of this time believed in “natural laws”. Thus meaning that God put us on earth planned everything out, but no longer interacted with us. Think of it this way, God put us on earth with a plan and set a clock that goes with us, but he can never touch it again. The Enlightenment started to leave the colonist speculating their traditional religions they are used to this starts what is known as the Great Awakening.

The Enlightenment was rife with skepticism, self-reliance and discovery. Voltaire’s Candide boasts each within its three main themes; the critique of philosophical systems (optimism, pessimism, and empiricism,) along with social criticism, and utopian ideologies. Voltaire viciously attacks the Church, the Aristocracy, and the Military. This was perfectly in line with the core ideals behind the enlightenment, a time where philosophers believed in using reason and scientific experiments in lieu of Christian dogma and tradition. Voltaires Candide perfectly encapsulates the ideology behind the Enlightenment through its’ illustrious acrimony and skepticism against the church, military, and philosophical systems.

The Enlightenment thinking focused more on using the power of reason to analyze the world instead of just accepting the ideas in the Bible (Brown Tindall, Emory Shi, 105). The Great Awakening on the other hand, despised this way of thinking because it made people stay away from religious beliefs. Because of this, instead of further promoting Enlightenment thinking, preachers rushed to restore the emotional side of religion (Brown Tindall, Emory Shi, 109), in order motivate people to use their hearts rather than their minds (Brown Tindall, Emory Shi, 112). Works

While Kant’s theory may seem “overly optimistic” (Johnson, 2008) now, it was ruled as acceptable and rational behavior then. Kant believed that any moral or ethical decision could be achieved with consistent behavior. While judgment was based on reason, morals were based on rational choices made by human

While reading about the enlightenment it was brought to my attentions that many philosophers actually disagreed on many minor issues but all shared the fundamental principles. It was not just the philosophers that started to question the society that they lived but citizens too. With scientific breakthroughs, they started thinking empirically. Which caused a huge change the started to conclude their answers be observation and experience instead of logic. They challenged many of the churches practices. Each one of the philosophers assigned had a unique view on religion, and how it shaped the Enlightenment period. For example, Moses Mendelsohn was the “Jewish Socrates” he argued for religious toleration and religious distinction of Jewish communities. Whereas Voltaire, one of the prominent French Philosopher’s wanted answers to why Roman Catholic Church executed Huguenot Jean Calas. Voltaire questioned the Catholic Church, he did not consider himself to be and atheist but to be a deist. Lastly, Lessing called for religious tolerance of all religions not just Christianity.

Immanuel Kant was an influential philosopher that looked at ethics and morality from a different perspective from Utilitarians. Kant believed that people are obligated to follow

The kingdom of God does not rule! During the enlightenment era, philosophers from Europe began to question the standard practices used to maintain the social order of society. The concepts of religion, government, and politics were all called into question by the great thinkers of Europe during this time. Baruch Spinoza, Voltaire, and David Hume were 3 great thinkers of the enlightenment era who questioned the role of religion in maintaining social order (Thinkers of the Enlightenment). Baruch Spinoza, Voltaire, and David Hume were all important philosophers who helped decrease the power of the church in Europe during the Enlightenment Era.

The Enlightenment during the eighteenth century challenged each of the traditional values of the Catholic Church in that age (“Faith & Reason: The Role of the Roman Catholic Church During the Enlightenment”). Europeans were undergoing a constant change; unfortunately Europe’s religious organizations were not keeping up to par with these continuous changes. During that time period, the most prominent and conservative institution of Europe, the Roman Catholic Church, was completely forced into a direct conflict that at the time did not seem to have an end (“Faith & Reason: The Role of the Roman Catholic Church During the Enlightenment”). The Church was under attack by non-believers. The rest of the community who did not agree with Catholic beliefs were out to get them, they wanted to prove that nothing is “real” if it could not be proven through science. Nevertheless, the Church did not cease their fight. They continuously insisted that they were merely a source of truth through God. They also confidently claimed that all those who lived with disbelief were to be damned in their afterlife (Catholicism History). It was very apparent that the rest of the world was not having it and they did not care what the consequences were for not believing; they refused to be Bible huggers, basically. They were questioned left and right on their intentions and still, to this day are not supported

The Enlightenment was time for science to take center stage in Europe. Through science new discoveries were found and inventions were made. Science was now being applied to ever and anything that scientists could think of. For the first time in history, religion was being pushed to the side. Since science was taking over religion teachings were becoming questioned when it came to ways of thinking. The Enlightenment also introduced a new wave of influential thinking. Denis Diderot was one of the influential thinkers to come out of the Enlightenment. In his book D’Alembert’s Dream he directly questions the Bible shows that he was radical when it came to his ideas. By expressing his views

Enlightenment began as an intellectual movement in the 17th and 18th century among European philosophers. It emphasized individual reason over tradition. In other words, enlightenment is illustrated by a belief in the authority of and need for human reason, particularly in regards to politics, education, and religion. The ideas of enlightenment were explored predominately by philosophers like Kant, Goethe, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Adam Smith. Living towards the end of the age of Enlightenment, Emmanuel Kant wrote about his experiences and understandings in regards to enlightenment, the threads of these ideas can be seen through the writings of other philosophers like Hume, Schleiermacher, and Herbert of Cherbury.

It was and age of reason based on faith, not an age of faith based on reason. ‘The enlightenment spiritualized the principle of religious authority, humanized theological systems, and emphasized individuals from physical coercion’ (Rempel). The central theme of this movement was the effort to humanize religion; all philosophies however, rejected original sin. One philosopher that created problems for the church was Blaise Pascal, who proposed the Probability Theory.

Immanuel Kant has a different perspective from the others mentioned. He does a decent job at showing how morality is not dependent on religion. When morals are dependent of religion, one will act based on consequentialism. If your action is morally incorrect your consequences from that action will result in punishment from god (possibly damnation) and vice versa. Kant’s general idea is that morality is not simply about creating the best consequences. He believes in principle of law, which means no religion or deity is involved in decision making. Laws are the source of morality in this theory. He also believes laws are universal and you should act in accordance of laws because of a moral obligation to

The Enlightenment was a time of thinking, recalculating, and coming up with new ideas to replace the old and evolving from medieval ways. During the Enlightenment, people questioning everything including whether or not the church should have all the power and if their religion was correct. Martin Luther came up with several ideas about how the Catholic Church was wrong and eventually made up with his own religion called Protestantism. The ideas of the Enlightenment lead to many revolutions including the peasants’ revolts in the German States. The peasants’ revolts in German states, during the early 1500s, resulted in both positive and negative effects.

Two of the most important impacts of the enlightenment were the impacts upon religion and politics. The impact of the philosophes upon religion was very important. The enlightenment ushered in the ability to recognize the right to disagree with the concept of God. Writers like Voltaire confronted and opposed religion, most notably Christianity and the Catholic Church. Voltaire wrote a fiery indictment of the religious establishments of the day in many of his writings such as Candide (1759) [1]. In this work he outed the religious order and depicted the Catholic Church as a preposterous and oppressive regime of crime and intolerance. Voltaire fought

Radicalism is defined as “the beliefs or actions of people who advocate thorough or complete political or social reform.” Radicalism is most often a response to something that is seen as broken. In today's world, people are weary to admit the governments of the world are broken as it is a relatively good time. There have been few wars, the world's economy has been booming. However, radicalism can still be seen in parts of the world where people are still heavily oppressed and in places where governments do not function well, such as places in the Middle East and Africa. However, if radicalism is given an opportunity, it seizes it. This was the case in early 20th century Europe. For centuries the people of Europe were taken advantage of with the feudal system, the Industrial Revolution, and constant wars. As a result of these oppressive situations, the people of Europe became disenfranchised and many immigrated to the United States to relieve themselves of the old rigid systems of Europe. However, all people have a breaking point. The poor harvests of 1788 lead to an already angry French population to revolt against the monarchy. Men such as Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Giovanni Gentile all sought ways to fix the problems of society in the late 19th century. Engels is quoted as saying: