>but describing them as the "christian taliban" is not accurate. > It's certainly true that the Puritans didn't come seeking religious freedom, but the ability

>but describing them as the "christian taliban" is not accurate. > It's certainly true that the Puritans didn't come seeking religious freedom, but the ability to combine their religion and government. > They are both cultures with deep religious drives, but those drives are different and expressed very differently. My comparison to the Taliban was more about the harsh way they ran their communities than their specific religious belief and social structure The puritan settled areas were highly superstitious and authoritarian communities where there is perceived (religious) justification for very harsh punishment on anyone who violates the community norms. The strictness with which the puritans ran their communities was far in excess of the norm for the time (which is why the witch trials were a big deal). In that way they're like the Taliban. It's hard to make comparisons to the current US social/political landscape without pissing everyone off. The puritans pretty much planted the seed of authoritarianism in the US and we're still fighting off that legacy today. >They were a strongly egalitarian and highly educated culture, featuring near-universal literacy both among men and women. They had a strong dedication to economic equality -- one town distributed equal-sized plots of land to it's settlers. It's a shame that 400yr later those aren't the traits that stuck around in our culture.