Comedian, George Carlin once said “I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State.These two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death.” In most cases religion in general is seen as prosperous and helpful, yet there are some extreme cases where religion is used to hurt people. One example of a church using their religion as a harmful hate mechanism is the Westboro Baptist Church. The church is known for their hate filled posters, songs and speeches. The church’s beliefs are extreme and very detrimental to the people who follow them. This can be compared to the Puritan religion not in exact beliefs, but in the extremist mindset and the part that they think God will damn them to hell if they don’t follow the Bible word …show more content…
In 1692 the Salem Witch trials took over the Puritan religion. People were being convicted based on spectral evidence and being hanged based on the words of greedy awful people who were willing to kill someone just to accomplish some of their own selfish desires. Thoughtless reasoning clouded by a harmful religion is what caused the hysteria of the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. Fear of the Devil, and witches who did his bidding, was very real in Salem at the time. People in Salem believed very much in plainness, the divine mission, and most of all grace. Puritan people believed that "The invisible world": disease, natural catastrophes, and bad fortune attributed to work of the Devil. For example women believed that if they lost a baby that meant that the were unworthy in God’s eyes. This seems absurd today because if someone loses a baby in the modern world it is taken as an unfortunate circumstance, not as them being and unfit human. In the 17th century many people were