Religion In Christopher Hitchens's The Autobiography Of Benjamin Franklin
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“Religion is part of the human make-up. It's also part of our cultural and intellectual history. Religion was our first attempt at literature, the texts, our first attempt at cosmology, making sense of where we are in the universe, our first attempt at health care, believing in faith healing, our first attempt at philosophy.” Christopher Hitchens, in The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, outlines Benjamin Franklin’s view on what religion was, in his time and how it varies towards the two separate ideas of believing in God and going to church. For Benjamin Franklin these two objectives could be very different things. In his eyes being religious wasn’t about how often someone attended church, donating to pastors' plans, or following what seem to be arbitrary rules. Religion is about believing in God, being honest about your prayers, being virtuous and doing good things. Benjamin Franklin meets…show more content… He believed that religion was a good way for people to connect in a community and that it had the power to bring people together. This can be seen when he states, “It was wonderful to see the Change soon made in the Manners of our Inhabitants; from being thoughtless or indifferent about Religion, it seem'd as if all the World were growing Religious; so that one could not walk thro' the Town in an Evening without Hearing Psalms sung in different Families of every Street.” (3.20). He refers to religion as being ‘wonderful’, which in this case is him referring to religion as being miraculous in the way it can bring a community together. This once again shows how Benjamin Franklin was very open-minded towards religion and shows that he is respectful of others personal