Religion In The Seventeenth Century

What is religion? How strong can it impact a nation? Religion is a system of faith and worship. Religion can strongly affect a nation because in the seventeenth century people were far more religious than in the eighteenth century. The importance of religion declined from the seventeenth century to the eighteenth century because of Deism who were enlightenment thinkers and by the lack of attending church that lead the colonist to respond by having a Great Awakening.

In the eighteenth century colonist could choose from almost as many religions as consumer goods. (pg 120) Some Represented Some form of Christianity, almost all of them Protestant.(pg 120) Although there were many people converting there was a decline in people attending church. It didn't so much decline as it was simply set aside while people tended to more urgent needs. There was a good deal of isolation on the frontier regions, and people had far less time to devote to formal religious observances. And we can't forget that even then, church attendance was as much a matter of political correctness
Deism shared ideas of eighteenth century European enlightenment thinkers, who tend to agree that science and reason could disclose God's Law in the natural order.(pg 103). In the eighteenth century there was an enlightenment that encouraged people to study the world around them to think for themselves. For example, Benjamin Franklin wrote Poor Richard's Almanac which stated that worldly gain can only be achieved by work, discipline, and thrift. Which meant that with scientists telling everyone about new ideas and having evidence, and then priests preaching about things from a book, who are the people suppose to believe? It's the same reason religion is becoming less popular today. Since science knows more and has proof. Religion "knows" the same it did thousands of years ago with no proof. This lead the colonist to have the Great