why was religous freedom was popular in america?

Question

in the mid atlantic colonies

Answer 1

I don't think it was popular in the 18th or 19th centuries, for example. I think that once the Americans matured and moved away from a rural, agrarian society they once were to a more sophisticated one, they started accepting the right to differ. Still, I don't think Americans are totally impartial towards all religions. Christianitian churches continue to dominate the scene in both numbers and money. They interfere not only in the moral views of the people, but in the economy, the media and most of all politics.

Answer 2

Most of the early Americans were either Dutch (who believed in religious freedom because it was customary) or English expatriates who were oppressed by English laws that recognized the Church of England as the only religion.

It should be noted that the notion of religious freedom in America wasn't really considered what it means today back then. During the period of American colonialism, when we were just a colony of England, true religious freedom was rare. Puritans hated Quakers, Perfectibilists hated Puritans, and they generally all hated Catholics and Jews. Naturally, they had laws to persecute other religious denominations within their settlements. In a Puritan settlement you could be exiled or executed for not being a Puritan.

The idea of religious freedom didn't happen until the Revolutionary period, where it was done more to unite colonists of different faiths to revolt against England. Most of the major revolutionary leaders (Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine) were Deists or rationalists and didn't practice Christianity. Deism is a doctrine that a god exists (usually the Christian god) but doesn't intervene in human affairs and doesn't care what humans do. They guaranteed religious freedom because they knew it would attract supporters to their cause (also to protect themselves should they have succeeded).

Answer 3

In the 17th and 18th centuries, many Europeans immigrated to the land that would later become the United States. The primary reason for many was the desire to worship freely in their own fashion. These included a large number of nonconformists such as the Puritans and the Pilgrims, as well as Catholics. However, with some exceptions such as Roger Williams of Rhode Island and William Penn, most of these groups did not believe in religious toleration and in some cases came to America with the explicit aim of setting up a theocratic state compatible with their faith. The Plymouth Colony and Massachusetts Bay Colony were colonies with established churches. Their successor states of Maine, Massachusetts, and Connecticut remained as states with established churches well into the 19th century.

Given the variety of religious and although almost overwhelmingly Protestant sects, the diversity of opinion on Christian theological matters was wide. Consequently, the Constitutional Convention believed a Federal sanctioned church would serve to disrupt rather than bind the newly formed union together. Thus, George Washington wrote in 1790 to the country's first Jewish congregation, the Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island to state:

"All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support."[2]

Furthermore, there were dissidents to the support of any established church even at the state level. In 1773, Isaac Backus, a prominent Baptist minister in New England, observed that when:

"church and state are separate, the effects are happy, and they do not at all interfere with each other: but where they have been confounded together, no tongue nor pen can fully describe the mischiefs that have ensued."

Answer 4

People came to the New World to avoid religious persecution in Europe. It was a very dangerous trip in the 1600s so you know how badly they wanted it.

Answer 5

The English men who flied to America were persecuted for their believes.
So, it seems obvious that they were for religious freedom

Answer 6

Why? Would you like to get persecuted for your beliefs? Neither did the colonists, that's why they came here.