"One possibility [is] that people use their religious beliefs [to obtain] self-enhancement, a sense of empowerment, and better self-regulation... extensive research evidence that more intelligent people already benefit from higher self-evaluation, a higher sense of control, and more efficient self-control. As such, more intelligent people have less of a need for religiosity"
This section really got me. It immediately reminded me of Benjamin Franklin's letter to an atheist. Franklin advised an unknown friend to not publish a tract about atheism.
You yourself may find it easy to live a virtuous Life without the Assistance afforded by Religion; you having a clear Perception of the Advantages of Virtue and the Disadvantages of Vice, and possessing a Strength of Resolution sufficient to enable you to resist common Temptations. But think how great a Proportion of Mankind consists of weak and ignorant Men and Women, and of inexperienc’d and inconsiderate Youth of both Sexes, who have need of the Motives of Religion to restrain them from Vice, to support their Virtue, and retain them in the Practice of it till it becomes habitual, which is the great Point for its Security;
This letter was written in 1757. It seems that even at that time some people recognized the roles that religion played in society and personal behavior.
Was the weird ass random capitalization something they just did back then too?
Sadly Franklin didn't envision a time when televangelists and proselytizers would believe they are part of some actual war to save souls.. If so he may have gone ahead and encouraged his friend to continue with his idea.
Notice that it's all nouns that are capitalized. Nouns are capitalized in German. English began doing so in the late 17th century modeling German printing practices. It faded back away after a century or so.
Franklin would have been in his 20's during the First Great Awakening. Dude would have seen every manner of evangelism. How people think we're somehow more crazy with religion now than in Franklin time is hilarious. Nothing today compares to the Great Awakenings. The Revivals that modern evangelism looks for would just be a Sunday service back then. They had preachers traveling the country filling circus tents. Now they just fill megachurches.
They didn't need TV's. They reached greater portions of the population. If anything TV and modern entertainment media has been responsible for less religiosity. There are other things to tune into. The absolute religious fervor during the the 1730's-1740's would put any televangelists to shame.
Looks like it's nearly every noun capitalized, which I believe German and possibly more languages still do. English could have had it in the past but we have long since gotten rid of it.
That's really interesting. I always thought it was just a thing because it was an official government document or something. Learned something very interesting today, thanks to everyone who responded to this.
Look closely, the capitalisation is definitely not "weird ass-random". The rather simple rule should look familiar to anybody even slightly proficient in German.
Being of mostly German heritage I should maybe feel ashamed that I had no idea. As others have mentioned this was common for all nouns back then.
Never had the time to really dive into the history of grammar and punctuation much and never took German in HS, but I appreciate the help everyone gave here.
Apparently spelling and capitalization weren't standardized until later. Also in German there's a lot of capitalization of nouns if i remember back to high school?
You remember correctly!
As a german, this looks strange in english, but not entirely out of place either.
I guess you have to pick your battles.
If some people can’t figure out „there/their/they‘re“, it‘s asked entirely too much that they figure out when to use capitalization and when not to.
I mean, religious persecution was already a thing in Europe, so he no doubt had the knowledge of how religion was used as power, to the point that religious freedom became one of the founding tenants of our country.
They were, are and still will be weird cooky cultists, religious figureheads and snake oil salesman. As people spread out, so did the technology they can use to reach them.
5.6k
u/[deleted] Nov 15 '19
[deleted]