The Enlightenment thinkers who influenced many educated Americans in the eighteenth century

A) faced their fiercest critic in Benjamin Franklin, who didn't believe in the validity of the scientific method.
B) taught that the scientific method should only be applied to the natural world, and not society or politics.
C) believed that reason was useless because people were predestined for salvation or damnation.
D) taught that reason should be the basis for judging every human institution, authority, and tradition.
E) believed that men and women could achieve spiritual salvation by repenting for their sins.

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Final Answer : D, Explanation :  Enlightenment thinkers believed in the power of reason and that it should be used to judge human institutions, authority, and traditions. This influenced many American colonists in their desire for independence and creation of a democratic government based on reason and individual rights. Benjamin Franklin was actually a prominent figure of the Enlightenment and embraced its ideas. The belief in predestination and salvation through repentance was more prevalent among Puritan beliefs, which were influential in the early colonial period but waned in the eighteenth century.

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