The Rationalists
1. Briefly describe the difference between the Puritans and the Rationalists. Please be careful not to repeat the same words you have read in this entry. Then give an example of something going on today that would be a good illustration of Puritan thought, and one that would be a good example of Rationalist thought.

1. The rationalists are a group of people that lived in the time called age of reason in the 1700s. They believed that god made the world and every thing living on it, but that it was up to the humans to find out a way to live and survive in it. This was a big slap tin the face to the puritans because the believed that you were not to question god in any type of way. That you were only to go to church and every thing you did needed to be for god or he would let you fall in to hell and their was no way to make god happy. One example of something going on today that would be some what like the puritans and the rationalists would be evolution. The rationalist example part would be that every ting on the earth evolved from different species. An example would be that humans evolved from monkeys. The puritans example would be that god made everything the way it looks right now and we should not question god in any type of way.

2. Give one example from The Autobiography of how Franklin is a good example of a rationalist. Make sure you explain why, and provide an example straight from the text.

2. One example of how Franklin was a good rationalist was that he wanted to improve his life. So instead of saying that he wanted god to help him he took it in to his own hands and made a chart of his thirteen virtues and for each day of the week and marked each virtues as he went. Then at the end of the week he went back and looked at his chart that had all of his data and analyzed it. Franklin used logic and science to improve his life and not god.

4. If you were to make a list of thirteen virtues to improve upon in your life, what would they be? List them the way Franklin did. Do you think you could reach moral perfection in this way? Explain how you feel. This should be a paragraph or two.


*Work on school work; the more school work I do the faster I can graduate.

*Pay bills; I need to get my self out of debt (car payments)

*Get more organized with my time; need to organize my time so I can do more school work.

*Stop spending money on things I don’t need; Stop buying clothes and fast food.

*Learn how to be more tolerant; I really need to learn to stay calm when I get mad and not let small things get to me.

*Spend more time with my family; I only have one family and years goes by really fast.

* Be a better friend : i tend to kind to push them away at times.

* Be more involved in school activitys : it will look good when im apllying to college.

* bring my gpa up. the higher the better

* my health : if i dont get that together it is gooing to be bad later down the road.

* put more effort in around the house. it will get some of a load off to my in laws

* do more activitys with my dog : he may be a dog but he needs lots of love.

* do more things for myself: i find myself always thinking of others but i need to make myself happy too.

I dont think i can reach all these in moral profection. I can get to it as close as possibole. All of my goals are reasonable. Its just that i need to put more effort in to all 13 of my goals. What i plan to do is take one goal at a time and work at it until it comes to close as possible.