Jonathan Edwards said WHAT?!?!?

    A couple of days ago we read an excerpt of a sermon by Jonathan Edwards that was TOTALLY insane!!!!! (and not in a good way!) It was basically a huge death-threat to anyone who DARES doubt the wrath of God! He writes about God having the power to control rushing rivers--being able to let the water fly on anyone at any time. According to Edwards, he also has a bow and arrow constantly pointed at every person's heart, ready to let the arrow fly at any minute if he so chooses. This he will do to anyone who opposes him, i.e. the sinners of the world. This leads the sermon to be entitled "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God". This is why Edwards preaches for everyone to serve as an observing Puritan, so as not to anger God in any way and so that when life is over, one may have a merry, cheerful afterlife filled with strawberries, butterflies, and.........well, you get the idea. These people are being threatened and pressured into living life in the puritan way, or else, essentially, they will be smitten by God.
    As with almost all blog entries I've written thus far, I will express my personal opinion, as follows:

DOES THIS GUY REALLY THINK THIS #%^&*(^$%$##%$##$#&**()*(&&^%$#@#$ %^&*())(*&^% @#$%^&*(*&^%$%^&^%$%^&*@#$%^&*%^&^%^&*&^%^&*(*&^%$# WILL BRING HIS COMMUNITY TOGETHER PEACEFULLY?!?!?!?!?

   That's my opinion on his sermon. If I had to honestly say what I think of it, I would say that it makes absolutely no sense to me why these people would believe such a thing to be true.
    However, in order to make an unbiased decision, I would have to fully take into perspective the life of a villager in a Puritan society. I would imagine they only know this way of life, and thus have no idea what other lifestyle they might have had in Great Britain.
    However, if I were a British person, I would look onto these puritan societies as though they were extremely strange, which they still seem to be, from my perspective. It is no wonder that they essentially evicted them from Europe, banishing them to the 13 colonies where they could "annoy" the Natives.
   How about you? What would you do if you were a Puritan? If you were to pretend you had no preexisting bias, could you simply go along with the flow? What about if you were a British person or a Native American looking onto these strange societies? How would you feel then?