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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