Reflection - Franklin's Virtues vs. Deism

According to religiousrolerance.org, the definition of deism is as follows: Belief in God + Religious = Deism. For me, this really put things in perspective. Benjamin Franklin is one of history's most prominent Deists. His ideas and virtues highly reflect the basics of Deism. During Benjamin Franklin's time, the Enlightenment was influencing everyone around the world (Deist Roots of America). Franklin included, he was big about not necessarily proving religion wrong, but finding logical reasons behind religion itself. Together, Deism and Benjamin Franklin's virtues are interestingly intertwined with one another, as seen on deism.com and in Franklin's Autobiography.

The Enlightenment period in America and Europe is one of the most interesting movements that has swept the world in all of history. People, like Franklin, were beginning to think outside of the box and finding new ways to prove things that before only had religious reasoning. When Franklin applied science and logic to religion, he was demonstrating another popular movement throughout society during the late 1700's, deism. Deism does not revolve around a specific denomination, but rather represents an overall ideology on no specific religion. Franklin converts to Deism as seen in his Autobiography. In one of his virtues, Humility, he states that he follow Jesus and Socrates. This is an example of how Deists thought in the day. They did not see any religion as the "right" religion. They believed that God created the universe, but as I stated previously, they did not believe in any specific denomination (Deist Roots of America). Benjamin Franklin does not follow Jesus alone, but uses a rational approach by stating to follow Socrates. This shows that Franklin was religious but with a very rational approach also.

In Franklin's Autobiography, he states, "Some books against Deism fell into my hands; they were said to be the substance of sermons preached at Boyle's Lectures. It happened that they wrought an effect on me quite contrary to what was intended by them; for the arguments of the Deists, which were quoted to be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refutations; in short, I soon became a thorough Deist." In this quote, Benjamin tells readers how he converted to Deism. It took a book by Boyle, against Deism, to convert the prominent Benjamin Franklin. I find this very interesting because it is a good example how Franklin thought. Instead of agreeing with Boyle, he was ultimately converted and went with the subject that the author was trying to disprove. This is much like Franklin's virtue of order, stating that everything has its place and time. For Franklin, his "everything" was deciding what he believed. He gave it time, seeing that he converted to Deism at a very old age. It fell into its own place at its own time. This closely relates to Benjamin Franklin's virtue of order.
I was very interested to learn of Franklin's Deism life and how he came to be. It turns out, his virtues and the basic ideas behind Deism are closely intertwined. He revolved his political and even personal lifestyle around the basics of Deism. In regard to the references I found to relate his virtues to that of Deism, I found those websites to be very helpful.

"Deism: Its History, Beliefs and Practices." Web. 24 Oct. 2011.

"Deist Roots of America." Welcome To The Deism Site! Web. 24 Oct. 2011.