What does it mean to be a "city upon a hill"?

Where were the "special commissions" coming from? Was it like the Bible is today or did they just make up rules and such?

What is a covenant? A covenant is an entering of a contract between two parties and both are expected to keep their side of the contract or the covenant would be broken.

What agreement are the puritans entering in, and who are they entering it with? They are entering into a covenant with God. They made it to establish a truly Christian church and to not exploit the poor but have the wealthy halp them instead. If they broke it they would feel God's wrath, if they kept the covenant however, God would make them an example and make the a "city upon a hill".

I don't believe this ever solves anything. War never ends well for either side. It is a sad history.

They made it seem like it was a normal day and then attacked.

I wonder what caused this brief, uneasy peace before the last attack by the Powhatan people.

How, generally, do the colonists view people of the Powhatan Confederacy? At first the colonists were kept alive by the people of Powhatan; however, when tobacco used up resources and the colonists took more, the Powhatan people attacked and from then on, they were seen as savages and people that needed to be killed.

After the attack, what does Waterhouse feel the colonists are free to do? He believes they are free to kill them all since they "attacked first" and then they would be free to use the resources of the Powhatan people for tobacco and gain.

They wanted tolerance for them, but were not willing to give it to others.

How did they decide that God had chosen them?

Seems like they always use religion as a way to do what they want.

War between them was inevitable, but sounds like they used this as an excuse to just take all the land they could get.

You would never know that this is how the English's Jamestown got started.

This was a smart way to ensure food for their people.

When I visited Ireland, people still hated Enland for all it had done to them.

Sounds like he told the people exactly what they watned to hear. I wonder how many of these promises were kept.

Did the english start the rumor of the Black Legend? Or did they just use it to their advantage?

Power and land are so fleeting.

What does this mean? What were the different understandings?

Sad to see that even though they seem the most progressive that I've read so far, they still have slaves do the labor.

This is good to hear. Relgion is supposed to be a free choice and it seems to have helped them progress in thier territory.

This kind of reminds me of how some Christians today are trying to let people know that not all of them are like the Westbro Baptist Churches and the like.

It's good to know that not everyone was trying to enslave the Indians.

It's frustrating to that using religion as always been the case for when people want more power and are greedy. It's the exact opposite of what their religion suppossedly teaches them.

Why was this order given? Was it common back then? I would think he would want to enslave those men as well.

It seems like no amount of land and power is enough for people, they always want more.

I think that King Affonso let the Protuguese enslave his subjects because at first they were just taking the lower class and POW. I also think maybe he thought they would have a peaceful relationship with the Portuguese if they cooroperate and provide them with slaves and make profit from slave trade. Since it got to be too many, they realized this wasn't good.

The king is requesting regulations because there are noblemen and others being kidnapped, branded as a slave, and trying to be portrayed as a bought and paid for slave. Since that is happening the king wants those men to be free again, but the white men are offended at this because they are hiding the fact that they have done what they are being accused of. So now the king wants to request regulations so this situation doesn't happen again.

It seems that since the begnning of writing down history humans have had a problem with different races. I wish we could learn that we are all part of the human race.

I can see how it is a good military move to overtake the city when the people are weak, but reading about it now, it just seems really brutal and sad.

I remember learning about diseases like this when I was younger, and it's not until you grow older when you realize how many people this wiped out. It makes me thankful that we don't have diseases like this anymore because of modern science, vaccines, and medication.

This flood reminds me of the great flood of the Bible when God looked and found no good in anyone except for Noah and his family

How does this creation story differ from the others you have read this week? Might the presence of multiple Gods change the structure of a society which flows from this story? How does the behavior of the Gods in this story differ from other creation stories? What might this mean?

This story differs from the other orgin stories because there are multiple gods that rule different things, the one god who wants to create the land takes months to create certain lands and others like him. The beings were going to be created like himself until he got drunk and made mistakes. There is also a great flood because another god wanted to destroy all that was created. The other gods in this story allows for different outlooks on what's created and more opposition that when there is only one god creating life. In this story, most of the gods have little to do with the creations save providing what is needed and visiting the earth once it was finished. Olokun wanted to destroy what was created because she was not consulted on what was created in her domain and she created a flood. I think this means that there will always be a struggle of power when there are multiple beings in charge and have the power to create and destory. It reminds me of humans and how they are when they have power or domain over something: some want to create, some want to destroy, others are there just to watch.

I wonder if this dream was given so the chief's daughter could fall into the hole and into the earth to start the creation of the earth with her children. Maybe that was the way to get her well all along.

This part of the story reminded me of the Bible when God favored Jacob but not Esau and the twins did not get along in the story just like they did not get along in the Bible.

In this story the humans were in heaven until the daughter of the chief fell into a hole that had been dug that led to this world. The animals of the world lived on water because that was all there was until the toad went to the bottom of the water in search of soil. They took care of the woman and the toad spread the soil on the carapace of the turtle and the soil began to grow. The twins wanted to increase the size of the island and both went out to create forests, lakes, and other things. They then looked at what the other had made, but had found flaws in each others' creations. They fixed what they thought was wrong with the flaws such as making the mosquito smaller, making the streams only flow one way, and making the animals smaller. It seems one twin wanted to make things easier for the humans to come and one wanting to make things harder. Although one twin was killed because of their disagreements, it seems that they created a balance on earth from their creations.

I've heard different theories God's time vs. Man's time and whether a day here is really on God's time which is why the earth is billions of years old, or man's time. Something to think about.

I wonder if this was when the galaxies, solar systems, and planets were to be made, or maybe he made those when he made the earth in verse .

It is so weird to think about how hard it is to grow sugar and that it caused a slavery expansion because all we see today is sugar in everything.

It seems to me that the Native Americans had a much more progressive thinking back then than many people do today. We could definitely learn some things from them.