Most of the pioneers of the west were german, not english puritans like in the east. And I've heard before that most wern't christians, and I could be wrong, but wern't all christians like puritans at that time?

Anyway, if you look back at people in history, simply looking at their lives, it's obvious they aren't christians. All of the famous gunfighters, and generals. At the most, if you can find anything about their religion, they'll say (like custer) that he was raised as a christian but didn't really believe in it. But most of these guys, you cant find anything about their religion.

Once a person gives up christianity, it's hard to just give up on theorizing about god all together, so I think it's unlikely most of these guys didn't discover their original religion, after giving up christianity. And you dont have to believe in Giants and elves to be an odinist, so I'm not saying that. But alot of these pagan religions didn't have the same contradictions that christianity does, so it seems if they had read it, they would have atleast followed it to a point.

One example is Billy the kidd. Again, someone where I've found nothing about his religion, and obviously wasn't a christian anyway, and he read alot. And while it doesn't really matter either way when you think about it, for some reason atheists are never as willing to die as someone who really believes in something (some exceptions, like custer). And all of these guys were pretty much fearless. But I think it's very likely that Billy the Kid atleast followed some type of militant pagan religion. Can anyone cofirm that about any famous pioneers/soldiers/gunfighters?

Your post is full of unfounded ridiculous assumption.

Most of the German settlers in the colonies and early America were Protestant. There were some areas that had a high density of Catholics also, I remember reading about a certain county of Maryland that was like that.

There isn't any hard divide between Christianity and "paganism", by the way. During the conversion of the European peoples much syncretism took place. This continued to happen over the years through folklore and differing interpretations of scripture.

It also depends on the specific people you're questioning about and what time period exactly. During the era of Romanticism you're far more likely to find pseudo-pagans. After that there is all of the occult groups which based their practices after hermeticism.

But yeah, no offense.. but you're making really broad generalized statements that have no backing and jumping to asinine conclusions. Just because someone shows the might of the warrior doesn't mean they're pagan. Such an archetype is entirely human, and is found in nearly all societies and religions.

If you're in search of latter-day pagans, you'd be best to look into surviving folk religions in northern and eastern europe. The baltic states in particular still display quite a bit of the pomp and ritual from their ancient religions. Not long ago the nomadic Saami people of Scandinavia were carrying on some worship of Thor, either alongside or separate from their own shamanic tradition, which they learned from the Norse but it seems now they are mostly modernized.

Out of all the gunfighters, or generals, or whatever from that era, Custer was the only one to even be associated with christianity, and he was the half-assed type christian like most christians today.

And I was able to find a few articles about pagan settlements in the west. None of these people just "found the baby jesus". The people who they couldn't force christianity on, they adapted christianity, and included their celebrations, and rituals, like christmas and easter, so people would accept it. So all of their stories, were probably still around at that time, and I would imagine alot of them were still pagans.

Nobody could remain a christian in a life where they only survived. Because unless you are a slave, you can only survive by "sin". You will use your own logic to realize there is no good and bad (the message behind most of the pagan religions wich are natural to us). And most of them couldn't read, but some could, and I would imagine most of them would have atleast been interested in the ideas of alot of pagan religions.

EDIT: I doubt many of the guys in the west would have even tried to claim they were christian. Most didn't need much of a reason to kill someone. But I imagine most of them didn't care about god. They were there for gold, or whatever else. But the gunfighters, and bank robbers back then, I think alot of them might have atleast read something like that, and believed it in some way.

Once a person gives up christianity, it's hard to just give up on theorizing about god all together,

No it isn't. Though I guess you speak for ALL ex-Christians, don't you?

i respect your intensity towards fighting christianity (judgeing by your other threads)
but it would help if you made more fact based arguements.

ill agree early americans showed little or no faith in the beginning but the majority atleast called themselves christians