Benjamin Franklin Response Essay

Response Essay: Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Franklin a Boston born founding father, who helped shape todays America, had many factors influencing his life such as his race, gender, economic status, education level, and religious views. These factors played a large role in the way that he lived his life, and how he went about accomplishing his goals. Franklin had an enormous record of personal accomplishments, but one most notably would be his autobiography. In his book, Franklin recounts his life, and we get to see directly into the thoughts and actions of a man who impacted the world. Franklin immediately gives us of several reasons that he has decided to write his book. First, he quickly tells us that he enjoyed reading
This instilled in him the quality of frugality, which he thought was admirable and would serve him well in his life, and even a quality he appreciated in his wife. However, the fact that he was born into a poor family did not discourage him from obtaining his goals, and in fact, one could argue that this only pushed Franklin even more. After having achieved his goal of wealth and success, Franklin was still known for his frugality and responsible spending on things that he enjoys doing such as science experiments and reading books instead frivolous spending like country homes. These qualities helped keep Franklin on his path of success and
However, Franklin took on a sort of nuanced view of religion. He believed that religion was more about possessing good virtues, which he makes a list of, communicating with God in your own way, and overall just being a good person by doing the right thing. Franklin was known for not participating in organized religion, by not going to church, which he felt sometimes got in the way of people doing the right thing. Franklin’s personalized approach to religion influenced him heavily, as he was living in the New England area, and it was have been easy for him to adopt a highly religious conservative lifestyle. This would have prevented him from questioning government roles, which lead to better policy; it could have also prohibited him from establishing peace between the European and Native Americans. Also, if he had been highly religious, he might have donated more of his money to the church, in which case he would have less money to read, do experiments, and help