As a kid I learned that the early European settlers whose communities played large roles in founding this country left Europe to escape religious persecution in favor of religious freedom here.

I rarely thought about it since but looking at a lot of religious views particular to the U.S., I wonder if these settlers weren’t more religiously intolerant and therefore had trouble staying in Europe.

I’m not a historian. For all I know I just wrote something painfully ignorant, but I see a lot of intolerance here that I don’t see in Europe.

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