Jude30,

This in a part of your history, not the line for my country, Australia,

Seeking freedom for your own sect, even if this is not translated to the general population, seems to fit the terms of the answer.

Unfair, but fits the terms.

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Calm, quiet, smooth, devastating

Jseal: you're flat out wrong here.

The Puritans were in no way seeking religious freedom.

What they were seeking is the ability to impose on the Church of England, their own fairly strict view of Protestantism.

When that didn't work, yes, they emmigrated to Holland, claiming "persecution" by the very Church of England they were trying to impose upon.

When that didn't work, yes, they emmigrated to North America, seeking the right to worship as *they* chose.

This is NOT a matter of mere semantics, it is a very different statement. To present it as the same thing is a flat-out lie.

The Puritans explicitly claimed the right to set up a theoracy in the "New World", and further claimed the right to impose their religious view on anyone living within their colony, regaqrdless of whether or not a given individual was originally an emmigrant from England, a Native American caught within their area, or a slave imported by force from elsewhere in the world. Oh, they also claimed the right to expand their colony at the expense of the Natives living in what later became Massachusetts.

The fact numerous societally-accepted histories have repeated the lie about "religious freedom" impresses me not at all. To accept these various accounts as the "truth" is merely to participate in the concept advanced by Goebbels of the "big lie".

(Side note: this is not me indirectly accusing you of being a Nazi. There's no guilt by association I'm trying to push here).

Question: have you read, for example Zinn's "A People's History of the United States"?

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On the kinkometer, my kink measures as a sine wave.

I missed #21, 24 and 27, not to bad for an old man.

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gekkogecko,

I remain unpersuaded. Consider:


Actually, if you take the time to read the 1559 Act of Uniformity, you will discover that you have your history exactly backwards. This act, passed by Parliament in 1559, functions to reestablish “... one uniform order of common service and prayer, and of the administration of sacraments, rites, and ceremonies in the Church of England, which was set forth in one book, intituled: The Book of Common Prayer, and Administration of Sacraments, and other rites and ceremonies in the Church of England ...”. (first paragraph)

In a free society, we each worship what we choose to worship, in the manner we chose. You agree that this group left England ‘claiming “persecution”’.

“Claiming persecution?” Let us consider some facts before deciding if the claim was, in fact, warranted.

Under the Act of Uniformity, it was illegal to not attend Church of England services, with a fine of 12d (about $7) for each missed Sunday and other holy day. The penalties for conducting unofficial services included larger fines, exclusion from promotion, loss of position, imprisonment for a year (second conviction), and life imprisonment (third conviction). It was under this policy that Henry Barrowe and John Greenwood, two of the Puritan Separatist leaders, were executed for sedition in 1593.

Now, perhaps you feel that treatments by the State such as these do not constitute persecution or harassment, but I do, and I suspect that most people do.

Having provided a fact based explanation for the motivation these Puritan Separatists had for leaving England, we come to two other points of agreement. Yes, they traveled first to the Netherlands, and yes, they then settled in “the New World”. Good.


While interesting, and doubtless accurate, the above has no relevance to your assertion that the claim ‘the pilgrims emigrated to this continent to "seek religious freedom"’ is a lie. That is, after all, the issue at hand, not whether we approve of the behaviors of this group, or not.


A couple of points may be made here. First, the historians who wrote the histories which fail to impress you customarily do so after examining the primary sources. An example of such a primary source would be the 1559 Act of Uniformity, referred to above. Once they know what they are talking about, historians are well placed to provide useful insights into past events. This may be why these explanations are preferred to other, unsubstantiated ones. Second, I note that you have reverted to referring to the religious freedom notion as “a lie”. Do you have any plans to substantiate your claim, or should it be accepted as true because you said so?

Thank you for not calling me a Nazi. It is best to keep disagreements civil.

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Eudaimonia

28 right. fucking garfield.

learned something about impeachment, though - always thought it meant oust, but in a legal sense it only means accuse. hmm. that was a trick question!

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Trees give peace to the souls of men * Nora Waln

The forest would be very quiet if no other birds sang than those who sing the best * Henry van Dyke

some fairly sordid tales, rambles, and anecdotes
Hypothetically Speaking * Something More * Cammy Interrupted * An Experimental Vacation * Masked * so..damn..hot * Thank You * My toy, his idea * no.19 Maple Lane * I Have A Surprise For You * Yesterday * In a Quiet Kitchen * help me decide * untitled prose * more untitled prose

This is the MAIN reason that I don't post much anymore!It seems as if anything posted,ends up in a version of an indivuals opinion of what is
correct in their OPINION!The test was a simple test to get awnsers(sp?),NOT
to start a disagreement.I have noticed that one person (name withheld)
seems to want everyone to have their personal opinion & not a simple
diagreement.Most people have more important things to do than to try to change the world,so that everyone has the same views!(My opinion) Irish

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(Harley Davidson & the Marlboro Man)

But you fail to recognize (in this qote: I have no idea if you are familiar with the background history here) that the Act of Uniformity was passed largely in reaction to the threat that the Chruch of England felt it was under from mainly the Catholics in England (this was just after the the reign of Mary Tudor, aka, "Bloody Mary" and her Cathloic reaction), but also the threat it felt itself under from the Radical Protestantism (yes, the movement was important enough in 16th Century English history to warrant its own proper noun) of Edward VI. It was in fact, the Radical Protestant movement of Edward's time (1547-1553) that later became the Puritan movement the eventually produced the Pilgrims. Or so says the English history course that I took way back in college. The textbook for that course, BTW, that I still have and refer to occasionally is "A History of England", David Harris Wilson, Dryden Press, 1967/1972.

IOW, this persecution was a reaction to the acts of the Puritans themselves, when they sought to impose their own ideas of 'proper' worship upon the CofE.



Despite your rather condescending assertion that my illustration of thier (the Pilgrims') actions are irrelevant, said actions are in fact, the direct illustration of why the statement is a lie.

Examine these three possible statements of the Pilgrims' emmigration:

1. The Pilgrims emmigrated to North America to seek religious freedom.
2. The Pilgrims emmigrated to North America to seek religious freedom for themselves. (alternatively: The Pilgrims emmigrated to North America to seek the freedom to worship as they chose.)
3. The Pilgrims emmigrated to North America to seek religious freedom exclusively for themselves.

The first is a lie. Period. The Pilgrims demonstrated by their own actions why this is so. One example: one of the first people to be executed by the Massachusetts Bay Colony was a woman (unfortuantely, her name escapes me: I have a horrible memory for names), whose only crime was that she was a "witch": that is, she may or may not have actually practised a differing religion from the Puritans. Executing people for refusing to practice the state religion is not religious freedom, it is an act of establishing a theocracy.

The second is a half-truth. While it is accurate in so far as it goes, the statement ignores the many ways in which the Pilgrims refused to allow this freedom to others.

The third is full of implications, both positive and negative about the what actions the Pilgrims took, possible alternative courses of actions, and the stated motivations of the founders of the MBC.

It is not a matter of mere semantics: it is a matter of the manipulation of facts and language to fit a particular political point of view.

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On the kinkometer, my kink measures as a sine wave.