John Calvin's development of Calvinism is so concise and perfected that it is hard to believe someone could come along and change the views of everyone. While learning about Calvinism you believe that it truly is the only possible outcome. To be as knowledgeable as Ben Franklin and test the theory of Calvinism was brave and considered a major historical turning point. Even if someone had the thoughts before, no one would have enough background of their own theory to come out and actually say it anyways. The separatists believed that the new world was another one of "god's gifts" and was meant for them. It is a great contrast because the two ideas of Calvinism and age of reason are so incredibly different. There is so much more out there to learn but why question what is already known to be the only answer? Benjamin Franklin challenged the theory and with lots of experience he changed the views of many lives that were affected by the ideology of Calvinism. Once Calvinism was questioned it opened up a whole new question to what was becoming the New Testament vs. Old Testament. Many will agree that following the favored party is better than testing it; that is what they thought back then at least. If you look deeper into the meaning of Calvinism you realize that it is complete nonsense and the pilgrims were wasting their lives believing in this theory. John Calvin is not to blame for the pilgrims and puritans beliefs and disbeliefs but I do feel that they were not knowledgeable enough anyways to think otherwise at the time.
The idea of Calvinism was simply an idea that there were chosen ones and nothing could change what already was planned. The discussion in lecture about idea of correlation hits the theory spot on, "If I continue to do well in life, God will bless me." The pilgrims and puritans really did believe that if their crops were doing really well, it was God's signal that they were one of the chosen.