The more I read Pope’s An essay on Man the less I understand the hate that Pope receives from other writers of his time. Strictly looking at his ideas presented in his writings, such as “Say first, of God above, or man below/ What can we reason,but from what we know?” Pope is questioning the basis of our idea of God, which is what many thinkers and writers from this time were doing. So why did Pope get so much backlash as compared to these others who were starting to question and alter our ideals of God and “The Creator”? All Pope did was have the audacity to say what everyone was thinking, is there actually a God. And he presented multiple well thought out points to back him up and get his audience thinking such as “Is the great chain, that draws all to agree/ and drawn supports, upheld by God, or thee?” or “all ar but parts of one stupendous whole/ whose body, nature is, and God the soul;” which is him questioning the best way to represent and worship this “God.” Yet even when he follows the path of all great thinkers of his time, Pope still receives so much backlash. Perhaps it was because he was more forward in his writings when it came to sensitive topics. Another thing to take into account was how different Pope was and remember how people tend to reject things that are different from themselves. He was Roman Catholic and had a major physical deformity which was cause for those around him to openly detest him, and had anyone defended him they would open themselves up to ridicule just as great as Pope himself had received. So even if people actually agreed with his beliefs and ideas, none would admit it.
~Mikayla Degn
The Age of Enlightenment in the Long Eighteenth Century 
I would have liked to hear more about the song. -Brad
The most original idea was that if people agreed with Pope, nobody would admit it. You can improve by positing your claim earlier and posing it as a question, like did other non-Catholics agree/ disagree with Pope.
I find the idea that Pope was attempting to question God’s existence through his work to be the most interesting. That a Roman Catholic would questioning his faith through poetry is a very interesting idea and really gets the mind stimulated. However I feel as if more elaboration on the quotes inserted into the blog would be helpful in further developing this idea.
Your reference to the song lyric in the title creates the opportunity for you to draw parallels from culture and history to assert your reasoning on an ostricized Pope.
The most interesting idea presented in this post was that people who agree with Pope would not admit it. You mention the fact that if they did openly agree, they would also be ridiculed. Perhaps expanding on this idea more would lead to discussing the tensions between class systems and belief systems. As we learned, Pope was barred from receiving a formal education and so, was looked down upon. It’s possible that a part of his image, including his deformity and religion, can be attributed to his lack of formal education. Overall, I liked the post and only wished you went further in depth with the quotes.
-Daniel Corral
Asking questions are in fact pleasant thing if you are not understanding anything totally, however this article offers good understanding yet.