Posted on 11/22/2012 7:56:33 AM PST by VitacoreVision
They were headed towards Virgina Colony, but missed. After 66 days in a leaky tub at sea after 21 days locked up on ship in drydocks twice, I suspect they ready for anything terra firma.
Besides, Florida was closer to the Spanish empire, and not very friendly to Church of England Separatists.
One fact not mentioned above is that they landed in the middle of winter - November 1620, with Plymouth being selected as the site of the settlement in January 1621. Not a great way to start. Bad timing is a big part of what killed so many of the pilgrims. My pilgrim ancestor (and signer of the Mayflower Compact) Edward Fuller and his wife both died the first winter after landing.
Worse....they were Yankees
Jim Jones cult is a fair characterization. They also evolved into a society that killed religious dissidents (pretty rich by my lights, since that’s just what the Episcopalian Brits did to them in England, and one of the reasons they left). My ancestor (that got herself killed by the Puritans) was named Mary Barrett Dyer and she was hung by the neck until dead on the Boston Commons in 1660 for being a Quaker. Now she’s got a statue in front of the Massachusetts Legislature.
Well if you went through what the Pilgrims did just to get to America, you might feel you had the right to establish a place where your religion was the established religion. And might feel that anyone who felt differently had a wide choice of places in America to do things his way.My ancestor (that got herself killed by the Puritans) was named Mary Barrett Dyer and she was hung by the neck until dead on the Boston Commons in 1660 for being a Quaker. Now she’s got a statue in front of the Massachusetts Legislature.BTW, New England became a populous place because the Mayflower was far from the last boat loaded with Pilgrims to make the crossing.
I can see how you would see it differently than those Pilgrims, of course . . .
There are huge differences in socialism and Separatism/Puritan and Quaker theology. Even within Puritan theology, their eschatology changed over a century from when they left England for Holland and when the Quakers began to intrude upon the Puritan Separatist magistrates in New England. In the early 1600s they tended to be Millennial, while towards 1700 they tended towards Post or Amillennial eschatology, making tremendous differences in their theological perspectives.
For several centuries entire villages were slaughtered in Europe if their theologic perspective wasn’t the same as others in power. The State was frequently identified with the Church and theologic differences were identified as not only blasphemous but also treasonous and criminal.
They were hardly cults. They came to the Americas because they rejected the ritualism of Catholicism and the Church of England, and because Calvinism and the Reformers were also closely associating the Church with the State.
Jim Jones was much closer to atheistic in his perspective, seeking a cult power play amongst his followers and bouncing between numerous liberal theologies, but never following the fundamentals of Christianity.
Regarding the association of the Pilgrims with Socialism, the more accurate association is with their common shared resources when inadequate resources were available to keep alive in the physical elements without close community bonding.
As soon as they were able to support separate bldgs and family structures, they drifted away from common bundling of resources and favored independent living, with common Church and parallel Government.
Agreed. Terra firma, the more firmer, the less terror. - tom
Jim Jones was an atheist Marxist, who realized that he could cloak his Marxism through the guise of religion and fool a lot of people.
OOPS my bad
>> Worse....they were Yankees
Dude.
Sarcasm trolling...guilty as charged
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