Damn Puritans

[MacTheWolf (imported)]

Though I love history, I'm glad I wasn't living in Puritan New England or I would been executed long ago.

I've never believed in "the Devil" and those Puritans believed, "if you didn't believe in the devil, you couldn't possibly believe in God either."

Hence, I'd be toast.

[Hape39 (imported)]

Is there an actual reason for your anger?

[tugon (imported)]

Is there an actual reason for your anger?

I have no sense of anger in his post. Why are you projecting anger?

[Hape39 (imported)]

Maybe the fact that English isn't my first language let me "project" some anger into his post - if so, I'm sorry. But my question went into another direction: If there were some recent news or experiences, that made him post "damn puritans"?

[moi621 (imported)]

Though I love history, I'm glad I wasn't living in Puritan New England or I would been executed long ago.

I've never believed in "the Devil" and those Puritans believed, "if you didn't believe in the devil, you couldn't possibly believe in God either."

Hence, I'd be toast.

You are not too old to learn.

There are "not material" entities.

Some may be departed ones and others just are

and may be "good", "evil" or "indifferent".

When one is drafted to hear them, it take no faith whatsoever.

Moi

Priests keep man away from God! And the messengers.

[Riverwind (imported)]

MacWolf, I am with you, I don't believe in the devil either, which means the Puritans would be right about me, I don't believe in god either. LOL well one god, several sure, one never and never one over the others no matter what she says.

River

[DeaconBlues (imported)]

Sounds like we are gonna have a witch burning party here pretty soon...

Years ago, I watched "The Scarlet Letter" with Demi Moore and Robert Duvall. That was fiction based on the novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne I believe. Turns out the writer Nathaniel Hawthorne had a relative who was somehow part of the very real persecution that happened in Salem (where "witches" were hanged mostly, one or two were crushed, and NONE were burned at the stake), the writer changed the spelling of his last name, added an "e" just to try to distance himself from the witch hanging "Hawthorn" in Salem.

If I had lived in those times... I think I would have had "The Scarlet Alphabet From A to Z" on me, not just the "A." But seriously, I do wonder, IF, IF, IF, for example, IF I had been alive in those times, what sort of person would I have really been? I would LIKE to think I would have been the sort of person who moved OUT of town and left all the superstitious morons behind, but you know, even "good" people are only as good as their education and upbringing.

Look today, this very day, at the new "witch burning" that we do. You don't think we are a bunch of ignorant "witch burners" today? Look at how we ostricize and punish one fellow, Bradley Manning, and many many others. Albeit, most of the ones we ostricize and punish HAVE done some things that seem wrong on the surface, but really, they were NOT all that wrong, and yet we stand by and do nothing as these misfortunate people are locked up and forgotten. Perhaps we are not "burning them at the stake" but what is happenine to them is still wrong.

[gareth19 (imported)]

Though I love history, I'm glad I wasn't living in Puritan New England or I would been executed long ago.

I've never believed in "the Devil" and those Puritans believed, "if you didn't believe in the devil, you couldn't possibly believe in God either."

Hence, I'd be toast.

Why would you be toast? Heretics were hanged, not burned.

[MacTheWolf (imported)]

Yes, gareth19

All the witches in America, but one, were hanged. The one was crushed beneath a door.

Then again, dead is dead. And not for committing any action that would have been a crime today.

[MacTheWolf (imported)]

I also found a interesting guy in history, Thomas Maule. He was a Quaker who dared criticize the Salem Witch Trials as they were ongoing.

Maule's famous quote in his book was, "better than 100 witches be permitted to live than one person be executed as a witch who was innocent of any wrongdoing.

"He was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment before he came to trial, then he was found not-guilty.