The Change of Religion

I found the reading to be difficult for me.I'm not much of a reader or much of a history person as well. The discussion really helped clear things up for me. I was not quite sure about the Enlightment and Great Awakening period. These events all took place after the scientific revolution where the discovery was made that the Earth revolves around the sun. This threw off the church beliefs and many churches, Baptist and Methodist, were introduced along with the idea of deism.

Colby's Thoughts on the reading.

I agree a lot with Joe's Post. The reading IS boring, however, while reading it I realized I already heard a lot of it during the Lecture. This made taking the quiz a lot easier because my notes were a lot of what she lectured on (which was just like the text.) I found myself dozing during the reading, I don't know what it is, but I always fall asleep reading about history. I didn't end up reading all of the text, but passed the quiz using mostly my notes, and skimming through the books. I did take the quiz a few times, but it was much easier after going to the lecture.

I didn't have a problem reading the book about Benjamin and William Franklin. It was just the other text that wasn't as easy to follow. All in all, I do think the lecture's are very interesting and informative, but the reading isn't that great.

(and yes, i know this is already late, but i'm doing it anyways.)

Alicia's thoughts on the reading

I think that this reading assignment definitely complimented Professor Weber's lectures. Henretta was almost exactly what she was talking about in class and helped me to get a better understanding of topics such as the Great Awakening and the Enlightenment. Both of these events discussed in Henretta were very important in history and needed to happen because the English monarchs had too much power over the American colonies. There could have been several different outcomes but I think it was inevitable that the American colonies would have to have new ideas and religions sometime since England is too far away to have complete control over all the colonies. It was essential for the American colonies to start their own form of government with leaders that they select. Also with so many different people it would be very difficult for the Church of England to really succeed over in the colonies. I found all the different forms of religion interesting. I did not really know much about deism before reading this text. Benjamin Franklin was a deist a deists believed that God created the world but then let the laws of nature take control. I think this is a very good way to look at religion. Another important part of this text was slavery. Slavery was a huge in the American colonies. 60 percent of all families in Chesapeake owned atleast one slave. For the most part, slaves were treated very poorly. Women were also not treated near as well as we are today. Men controlled almost everything at this time, such as the property and family.

In addition to the Henretta text we read Skemp, which mainly discussed the life of Benjamin and William Franklin. I found this text to be a lot more exciting to read than Henretta. I never knew so much about Benjamin Franklin but I think it was a good idea to read Skemp along with Henretta at this time because in Henretta we are learning about the Enlightenment which Benjamin Franklin played a major role in. Benjamin definitely made his way up the social ladder throughout his life. He started as a candle maker's son, did not have much education, was an apprentice, started the Pennsylvania Gazette, invented electricity, and much more. The kite experiment was especially neat to read about because it is crazy that such a simple experiment could lead to such an essential part of our daily lives.

I also skimmed over Sinners in the Hands of and Angry God and found it to be very fasinating. This article explains the line "Their foot shall slide in due time" which is from Deuteronomy 32:35. It says how the "wicked Israelites" were not completely believing in God and committing all kinds of sin but nothing bad was happening to them yet. The text says that although they may not know that God is paying attention, he is. God is paying attention to all their sins and when judgement time rolls around he will remember all the evil things they have done and will not accept them.

Reading Comments

Lets get it out of the way, Henretta is BORING! But it has as much actual facts than that of a book twice its size. Everything from mercantilism with goods of trade to talking about politics and the Radical Whig party, and thats only chapter three. In chapter four, all of the juicy parts of pre- Revolutionary war come into play. This chapter talks about how the Enlightenment, and especially the Great Awakening, advance society. Writing of John Locke and Benjamin Franklin start to define a nation with the new thoughts on religion and cultural by standard, to men like George Whitefeild who could captivate and astonish people with the utterance of but simple words within his preachings. The book also talks about how the end of the Seven Years war almost directly helped create the need for an American Revolution, as is also what Professor Weber talked about.
In Skemps book of the Franklin's, clearly shows how the relationships of people , kin or not, can deter the vary pages of a nation. In the first chapter of the book, Skemp gives a very basic back ground of Benjamin up until his time of moving into Philly(Philadelphia).She later tells of how Benjamin had a "bastard child", known as William. William and his father are not very close to each other until about the time that William joins the army. He and his father realize that they both have a strong nationalistic feeling for their mother country, and in this realization, they find an almost inseparable bond with each other. They both, together, take a trip to England it's self and find that they both love it their and would be happy to never leave that place. But they end up coming back to America, both for political and emotional needs, but thats another story. the Third chapter ends with the Franklin's feeling ok in their new positions in the colonies, despite them both almost being threatened with their lives.

Thoughts on the readings

I think that the Skemp texts complements Professor Weber's well. It goes more in depth about things I never knew about Franklin, or his son William. It was interesting to learn that he didn't have a great marriage. It was also interesting to learn that William and the Joseph Galloway supported the King, while Franklin didn't. The Skemp text was dense but it was interesting and kept my attention.

On the other hand, Henretta's text was a little harder to follow because so much was going on. Because of the abundance of dates and people that were sprawled across the pages, you really had to be concentrating while not letting your mind wander for even a couple of seconds. When my attention did leave the book's pages, I found myself very lost and had to re-read what I'd just read. But again, I thought that the lecture notes followed the two chapters that we read in Henretta very well.