The Puritans: Fanatic or not? :: essays paper

The Puritans Fanatic or not?A religious fanatic is someone who takes his or her faith tothe extreme, letting it make everything in his or her solar day to day life. The Puritans of the mama Bay dependency are a prime example of thisextremist view of religion. They had com plete religion based livesincluding the laws that they wrote, the way they treated outspoken women,and the way they treated concourse of other religions. The Puritans, for themost part, were good people, they just went way too farthest when it came totheir r eligious beliefs.In the late 16 hundreds, the Puritans wrote their laws accordingto what the Bible states in the Old Testament, and to what they thoughtshould also be a sin against God. These laws make some very petty andinsignificant things illegal such as worshipp ing a God other than theLord God, cursing the name of God, a child over 16 cursing his parents,and being stubborn or rebellious against ones own parents. Thepunishment for all of the afore mentioned laws and for many others wasdeath. Even interpr eting a preachers sermon in a different way wasenough to fare in trouble with the law. And for one woman it did.The mix of being a woman and committing an act against the churchwas even worse. Anne Hutchinson was a woman in the Puritan society withher own religious views. Ones that she shared with a train group ofpeople in the community when she held small meetings at her infrastructure toreevaluate and reinterpret what the preacher had said in his sermon. Forthis she got arrested, contrive on trial in a severe cross-examination, and wasfinally banished from the community. In this day and age, sharing ofreligious vi ews, even from a woman, wouldnt even be thought of as bad,much less a serious crime. still to the Puritans, having different views ofGods word was enough to have a person put to death. Even if they werefrom a different community all-together.The peace-loving Quakers lived in Massachusetts along side thePuritans, but did not believe in the alike things as them. The Puritancommunity saw this as a mephistophelian act and believed them to be under thestrong delusion of Satan. Serious injustices we re done to them, and mostof the time it was to innocent people. People were kept long time withoutfood, women were stripped stark naked, one lay neck and heels in custody for