Religion In Lawrence And Lee's Inherit The Wind

Superior Essays
Religion has been a major component in our society for hundreds of years and has helped the human race endure many dilemmas that may have been difficult to go through, but religion has also been the stop to the ‘progressive thinking’ of many and even separated some families. Religion can affect a person’s way of thinking and even their way of life because it can… In Lawrence and Lee’s Inherit the Wind we see many situations in which the manner of thinking of the citizens in the town of Hillsboro is influenced by religion, and numerous of those occasions the influence was not for the best. During a period of time when it was illegal to teach the theory of evolution, the inhabitants of the town seemed to close themselves off to anyone who was …show more content…
The religious aspects of Lawrence and Lee’s play Inherit the Wind have shown that religion can impact the behavior of those who have a specific belief, shown through the characters, E.K. Hornbeck, a reporter, Matthew Harrison Brady, a religious lawyer, and Reverend Brown. Behaviors can take on many different forms, but one common shown is aggression. In Inherit the Wind the aggression was demonstrated by Reverend Brown, who was one of the most agitated characters in the story even though he was a reverend. “O Lord of the Tempest and the Thunder! O Lord of Righteousness and Wrath! Strike down the sinner, as Thou didst Thine enemies of old, in the days of the Pharaohs! Let him feel the terror of Thy sword! For all eternity, let his soul writhe in anguish and damnation,” (Lawrence and Lee 59). …show more content…
On the other hand if intellect is lacking, ignorance impairs their judgment. The reactions they have to situations will not vary from any other problematic circumstance: such as aggression. E.K. Hornbeck, a reporter who was sent to the town of Hillsboro, notices this when he arrived and when speaking to Rachel noted, “ Don’t worry. I’m not the serpent, Little Eva. This isn’t from the Tree of Knowledge. You won’t find one in the orchards of Heavenly Hillsboro. Birches, beeches, butternuts. A few ignorant bushes. No Tree of Knowledge,” (Lawrence and Lee 29). Relating what he knows to the simple terms of Biblical scripture Hornbeck explains to Rachel how prominent ignorance and lack of knowledge is in this town. Psychologists Miron Zuckerman and Jordan Silberman from the University of Rochester and Judith Hall from Northeastern University created a study to see if religion had any effect on intelligence levels. They found that religion and intelligence did not go hand in hand, in 53 out of 63 studies. Zukerman, Silberman, and Hall said, “Intelligent people are less likely to conform and, thus, are more likely to resist religious dogma. Second, intelligent people tend to adopt an analytic (as opposed to intuitive) thinking style, which has been shown

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