Humanities & Classics 1002
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Renaissance Forum
Humanities & Classics 1002 |
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In Reply to: PLEASE POST YOU FIRST REQUIRED POSTING AS A REPLY TO THIS posted by TOM BACIG on December 13, 1998 at 19:30:06:
During the Medieval times, people revolved their lives around God, and on making God happy. They believed God is perfect and that people were put on this Earth to suffer, and their reward would be in Heaven with God after they died. Because people believed God would reward only the meek, they lived a very simplistic life revolving around God and all things Christian. Any amount of idle time gave people the possibility to stray from their religious path, so they kept themselves busy with prayer and work. Everyone was told to respect and not to question the authority and teachings of the church.
During the Renaissance, people began to think for themselves, and man decided he could take matters into his own hands.
In the movie, "The Name of the Rose" William of Baskerville represented a man who lived according like those of the Renaissance would have. He tought for himself, questioned things he didn't understand or agree with, and challenged people to argue for what he thought was right. The rest of the monks living in the monastary were still in a Medieval way of living, not speaking out against anything the Church said, basically not thinking for themselves.
In Imitations of Christ, Thomas a Kempis wrote that heaven is within you and to forsake the outside world, that when you have God, you need nothing else, to forsake comfort and you shall have heaven within you, and that you can only feel profited when you're lower than everyone else and that the meek man is the one that God will cover and take care of. The Medieval people lived their lives this way. It's an amazing form of programming that the church set up and scared the Medieval people into following. "Here," the Medieval church said, "here poor people, work really hard (because idleness can lead you astray), give the church all your money (because having posessions isn't humble or meek) live a humble life, and pray often. Then God will like you...Oh, and by the way, don't question us, because that's surely a sign of the devil."
In Pico della Mirandola's Oration on the Dignity of Man, he wrote that God made people and installed free will in them. Suddenly, people could do what they pleased, idle time was no longer an evil temptation to avoid, but something that was all allowed. People finally realized they had the right to pass the time as they pleased. And they made great use of it, with amazing works in art, music, literature, science, etc. He also wrote how God made three kinds of life forms, high, medium, and low, and gave man small parts in all of them. People no longer felt they had to be ridiculously humble, or lower than anyone else. IT was finally okay to think for yourself and to do what you wanted to.
alissa :)