Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 (USS@Tek, v1.1) based on 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site pogo.UUCP Path: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!hplabs!tektronix!orca!pogo!daveb From: daveb@pogo.UUCP (Dave Butler) Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc Subject: Re: Puritan Ethics Message-ID: <2758@pogo.UUCP> Date: Fri, 26-Sep-86 13:39:27 EDT Article-I.D.: pogo.2758 Posted: Fri Sep 26 13:39:27 1986 Date-Received: Sat, 27-Sep-86 19:23:02 EDT Reply-To: daveb@pogo.UUCP (Dave Butler) Distribution: na Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton, OR. Lines: 59 Got a response to my article on puritanism from Karen Christianson in article <5169@dartvax.UUCP>. You'll note that I am posting this strictly to talk.religion.misc since it is no longer germane to soc.singles. Basically, Karen chewed me out in a nice way informing me that the people I was talking about weren't true "Puritans" (ie: the Calvinist splinter group from the protestant reformation, that decided to completely scrap the Catholic Church and start over). I admit to using the word puritan in the other way the dictionary defines it (ie: someone who has a puritanical lifestyle. This is described as someone who practices or preaches a more rigid, austere and professedly purer moral code than that which prevails). This is why I tend to label all early American highly conservative, reactionary christian groups as puritan. When Karen said: > The guys at Jamestown weren't Puritans. (I'm not sure they even HAD > religion. :-)) she was correct about they're not being Puritan, but they were extremely religious. They were actually of the Church of England (now called Episcopalian Church in the U.S.). Allen Sherman made clear that the actual Puritans didn't arrive until 1620, but perhaps I didn't. What Sherman was trying to point out when he said: >> By the time the Mayflower arrived, America had already been >> going down the uptight staircase for eight years - since 1612, >> when the Jamestown Code was written. was that, while the Puritans hadn't yet arrived, the "Puritanical Way Of Life" had arrived 8 years earlier. This is made clear if one reads the entire book _The_Rape_Of_The_A*P*E*_ rather than just a few paragraphs, but I had to cut it off somewhere. She also points out that Jonathan Edward, the Hellfire and you scum are gonna burn in Hell while God laughs preacher, was actually part of the Great Awakening (a derivative of Puritanism), and not really Puritan. I still would hold that he was puritan in the sense that he was puritanical (Note: In my book puritanical is almost a synonym to tyrannical). She finally finishes off by saying its ok for the Puritans to have been intolerant because: > Religious freedom and tolerance weren't > acceptable concepts *anywhere* until after Europe suffered the Thirty Year's > War. While this may help us understand why they were intolerant jerks, it still doesn't excuse their being that way. Just as reading about pre WWII Germany may help us understand why Germans became Nazis, but it doesn't excuse them for doing so. It just helps us understand how they were able to rationalize their actions. Enjoyed this Immensely, Dave Butler Remember: Silly is a state of Mind, Stupid is a way of Life. P.S. I found a reference to a book that claims to have a list of 60 commandments written by one of the leaders of the true Puritan church. I'll try to find this list, it should be both hilarious and horrifying.