The Rationalists

The puritans believed that god saved those he wants and everything has to do with church and god. While the rationalists still believed in god but were more logical. They had a curiosity to know more about life other than Johnathan Edwards interpretation of it and explain it in a scientific matter.





"I concluded, at lenght, that the mere speculative conviction that it was our interest to be completely virtuous, was not sufficient to prevent our slipping;and that the contrary habits must be broken , and good ones acquired and established, before we can have any dependence on a steady, uniform rectitude of conduct. For this purpose I therefore contrived the following method. I proposed to my self, for the sake of clearness, to use rather more names, with fewer ideas annexed to each, than a few names with more ideas, and I included under thirteen names of virtues all that at that time occurred to me as necessary desirable. I judged it would be well not to distract my attention by attempting the whole at once, but to fix it on one of them at a time. I made a little book, in which i allotted a page for each of the virtues".

With that said he concluded that he can better him self by conducting an experiment. Were instead of praying and leaving it up to god, Benjamin Franklin thought out side the box and came up with a method of thirteen virtues. His method consisted of the virtues and a book were he mathematically recorded his daily actions toward those virtues. Benjamin Franklin can be considered a good rationalist because he managed to come up with a research and wasn't afraid to try it.

My thirteen virtues



1. Restraint- Self control

2.Patience- Don't become annoyed with ignorance

3.Forgiveness- Let go of resentment

4.Courage- Stand strong at weakest point

5.Faith- Believe in others

6.Tranquillity- Be not disturbed at Trifles, or at Accidents common or unavoidable.

7.Trust- To have confidence in others

8.Humility- Be humble
I know you asked for thirteen but I didn't want to repeat my self and these are the only virtues I would like to improve of my self.


I don't think I can reach moral perfection because these are my flaws and they as humans I think we can all be impulsive at times and that causes imperfection. I just think that their will be times were you can slip up. How ever I do think that I can do my best to change my flaws with his method and be satisfied with my self and others.