Journal 5: Guilt

Hester is guilty as charged. This is because that adultery is very clearly stated as immoral, bad, and least of all illegal. Hester knows the consequences of committing an adultery but she doesn't care and still committed the crime which is not even a less crime of negligence. She broke the law with full awareness of the law and consequences so she is guilty as charge. Aside from the fact that adultery is not tolerated in the society, it is even worse in a Puritan society. The Puritan society is supposed to be a clean, evil-free place where crimes, temptations, and all the devilish sins are not supposed to be found here but Hester committed adultery in this pure society. However, even though Hester is guilty as charged, she's not the only one worthy of the blame. There must be another person that takes the same responsibility and also be take the punishment because it takes two people to have an adultery and the other person involved in this huge scandal should also be guilty and be brought to trial. Usually after you do something bad, you feel guilty about it. Some people feel guilty because they feel bad about what they've done because it's uncalled for. Some feel guilty because they are afraid of getting caught and they try their best to not get caught. When I feel guilty, i feel both. Sometimes I feel guilty after I scorn a person and he keeps saying sorry. Sometimes I feel guilty when the authority is on the verge of finding out the bad deed I've done.

Journal 4: Puritan Poetry

The major Puritan belief was that every earthly pleasure was only temporary and that the only meaning of life was to redeem ourselves of the Original Sin so there would be a place high up in heaven after we gloriously leave our place on Earth. The burning house poem expresses Puritan ideology with very typical attitude. It is a very contradicting idea because if they believe that everything that happened is related to God then they should believe that Jesus' death was to relief the Original Sin of all people. However, they still believe that everyone should live the world just to clear their Original Sin as if Jesus have died in vain. They didn't respect what Jesus did for them and went ahead and disregard what he did for them. A normal person's poem after their house has burnt to ashes and lost all their possession would probably not praise or be grateful of God for not taking their lives along with their possession. In my poem I would probably write mostly to condemn God and blame God for all the unfortunate events that happened in addition to the burning of my house. I would release all my anger to God because he is the only one I can blame instead of myself and I would not want to blame myself for anything after I have just lost everything to such traumatic cause.

Journal 3: Possessions

Anne Bradstreet's belief is that everything we own is gift from God and if our lord sees fit to take away our possession then it is by definition justified and for the greater good. Since mortal stuff is temporary, we shouldn't be too attached to stuff we own in the human realm because we will eventually lose them once we step on our journey to the eternal afterlife. That's when things get set. You're either in hell or you're in heaven for good. Some believe that you go through the purgatory to pay off your debt before you go to heaven. But eventually, it's down to eternal suffering or eternal pleasure high up where sun shines bright above you. If we can detach our feelings to mortal possessions then there is a higher possibility that we can ascend to heaven. I don't agree with her point of view, in fact, I disagree it entirely. It is not God's grace that we get our paycheck at the end of every month. It's not God's grace that I can use a Mac. It's not God's grace that there's toilet paper in the bathroom. Every good thing that has happened to us we earned it ourselves. Maybe not entirely, maybe there's a tinge of good fortune but most of the good things are a combination of probability and mostly our hard work. If unfortunate things happen, I know it's not God's wraith but I would still be mad at God because I just needed someone except for myself to take the blame and since God has not yet rain fire on me, he's already messing up my life enough that I am numb to his minor punishments. If my house burnt down along with all my possession I would curse with all my energy about everything until I lose my voice.

Journal 2: Puritanism v Rationalism

Puritans believe that life should be as simple as possible and that people should worship God by themselves without the priest, Church being the media to talk to God. Rationalists share the same belief as the Puritans, that God created the universe. However, Rationalists differ in that they believe that God does not interfere with the balance and order of the world after his creation. That is to say, after God's creation of the universe, the world operates based on a set of rules deployed by God to run the world smoothly. However, The puritans believe that everything that happened has to be related to God, God's decision, God's intention, God's interference of an event, and God is running the world as it progress. I believe that the world is not created by God because I don't believe in religion. However, I do believe there is a God so sometimes I still pray. My belief is that all God does is answer prayers from people. Although most religious people in the world believes in science that the creation of the world was from the Big Bang, and that organisms evolved into humans eventually. However, they also believe, spiritually, that God exist and created the universe. They don't fight science, but in their belief they let them coexist. However, some hardcore religious people believe that eventually science will mature into realizing that God created the world in 7 days, just as the bible says. But this belief is shared by the minority of people.

Journal 1: A New Nation

The puritans are proud people that believes that they can set a good example for everyone. They believed in the Manifest Destiny that they are destined to rule America and to shine over other nations. America is certainly one of the most powerful countries in terms of military, however, there was more of a religious success believed by the Puritans. After the separation of Church and State, America pulled away from religion and grew further away from church. Also, at the beginning of the Puritans colony, the Puritans were living together densely packed to survive. They lived in harmony and to sustain each other by helping out as much as possible. America now is nothing like that, people are so spread out because of the flourish of automobiles. People care about themselves a lot more than helping out neighbors or friends. America didn't turn out the way they pictured but it might also be true that God is still in support of America because it is so powerful in influencing the international community as well as its military. There's no doubt America is an exemplary country of wealth, freedom, and power, but it grew apart from what the Puritans believed in the first place, religion. Even the example has hints of religious ideas but America now has grew away from religion.