Pilgrims fleeing religious persecution?

[SHRED]

I know we were and still are taught that the Pilgrims fled England for religious persecution reasons.

I have always heard that the poor Pilgrims were put out as if they were just trying to practice their religion.
What is left out of the story is that the Pilgrims were radical fundies who liked burning women at the stake and stoning to death people...correct? The Pilgrims were a radical cult that was way too overboard for the moderate Church of England...correct?

Just trying to clear up history.

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. Check the British history on this and compare it to the American version

[silverweb]

2. I thought that was the Puritans...

...who came later.

:shrug:

[SteppingRazor]

6. I think, actually, it breaks down like this --

The Pilgrims (the Mayflower, Plymouth Rock, etc.) were Puritans, AND more Puritans came later.

In other words, all Pilgrims are Puritans, but not all Puritans are Pilgrims. Make sense?

[Spider Jerusalem]

9. Actually, the Pilgrims were Separatists.

They thought the Church of England was corrupted beyond redemption, thus the "Separatist" label; the Puritans wanted to "cleanse" the C of E, by getting rid of anything that smacked of Catholicism.

[silverweb]

10. That makes more sense.

It fits in more with the way I understood things. The Pigrims just wanted to be left alone. The Puritans wanted to remake everyone according to their doctrines. As far as I can tell, it was the Puritans who were the first American Dominionists.

[dhinojosa]

3. Whew who knows when the krazy kooks came over.

or which one had Pat Robertsons great, great, great granddad.

[GeekMonkey]

4. Religion fucks up everything

[Fountain79]

12. Despite your opinion...

It brought people here didn't it?

[Touchdown]

5. What we don't hear is that they attempted to take over the Church

of England and failed in a coup attempt to make the King subservient to their moral laws. They landed on Plymouth Rock because they were exiled for treason, not for religious freedom.

The fact that we celebrate these whackjobs with a holiday should show anybody the falacy that is "Christians are persecuted" in this country. Of course we don't hear about them killing all the indians the day after the first Thanksgiving, do we? Historical Propaganda is what it's all about.

[flyingfysh]

7. They had religious freedom

Some of them were living in the Netherlands, where they were allowed to practice any religion they pleased. The real problem for this was that their children were growing up with Dutch attitudes instead of being religious as the parents wanted.

[One_Life_To_Give]

8. Well they had disagreements with the Church of England

But as I recall they thought it (the Church of England) was corrupt. Shamelessly used gold and other valuable objects which bordered on idolatry. IIRC they differed from the Puritans in their beleif wether they could ever reconcile with the Church of England.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

11. The whole story is more like this

The Pilgrims were not Puritans (who wanted to "purify" the Church of England from within) but Separatists, who wanted to get out of it entirely.

This was not legal in those days--almost all European countries required people to follow the same religion as their king. Anyone who didn't was subject to discrimination or persecution, depending on how uptight the local ruler was. In England, Catholics, Jews, Separatists, Baptists, Quakers, and admitted atheists were all equally in trouble

One of the few places that offered religious freedom was the Netherlands, so the Pilgrims moved there. However, they were staunchly English, and they didn't like it that their children began assimilating into Dutch society.

Few people know that the Pilgrims actually set out not from England but from the city of Leiden in the Netherlands.

Although both the Pilgrims and the Puritans were stern, NOBODY ever burned witches in the U.S. There was only one set of witchcraft prosecutions in North America, the infamous Salem trials of 1692, and the condemned were hanged, not burned.

The Pilgrims and Puritans were both Calvinists, but over the years, they evolved into two of the most liberal denominations in America, the United Church of Christ (UCC) and the Unitarians.

[Kraklen]

13. Yeah, the puritans were a laughing stock.

The English wouldn't let them push them around. So they went to Holland, and the Dutch wouldn't let them push them around. Then they went to the New World, and the Native Americans didn't have a choice.

[DivinBreuvage]

14. Contrary to popular myth, American Puritans were pretty progressive

for their day in their attitudes toward women, children, public education, civic duty, etc.; it was only on matters of religious orthodoxy that they excercised real intolerance. As for things like the treatment of witches they were no more cruel than anyone else in Europe, which underwent several horrible episodes of "witch hysteria". All things considered, they don't really come off all that bad in comparison to the rest of Europe or even to the settlers in the Southern colonies.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

15. Yes, unlike the Southern colonies, they had public elementary education

for both boys and girls beginning in the 1640s.