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Have any of you ever known or worked with some one who was illiterate? I have known two such people, and they were the most suspicious and conspiracy oriented people I have ever known. They consider people who can read as having a definite advantage over them, and they think you use it to trick them and lie to them.

There's a punchline in there somewhere, but I can't make it out...

I think it's in the notion of the paranoia of the illiterate. When literacy is thrust upon them they continue in their mistrust/resentment of what they have been "told" is true and almost by necessity will gravitate to a contrary opinion from what has been officially "revealed" to them. Even if this revelation is true, mind you.

Re post 390

Well, let's see now, Catholicism had been an oppressor in Europe for a long long time. Catholics coming to this country were not going to be allowed to lord themselves over the people in the new world the way they had in the old.

LOL. How you do this day in and day out is a mystery to me. Where to even begin? We could mention that the history of Europe after the Reformation is one of states loyal to either "side" doing their best to stamp out heresy. That you see the history of Europe as one of only bloody hand on the Catholic side is typical.

We could also mention the folks coming here for "Religious freedom" were fleeing the Protestant Anglicans. But you can wave your hand and call the Anglicans essentially "Catholic" and wash your hands of the deal.

And when it comes to exclusion, the Catholic Church has excluded itself. It was the Catholic Church that couldn't abide core christian teachings in the schools so Catholicism excluded itself from the school system and teaches their own form of history, and its religion. So let's us just get it strait and paint the backdrop that existed.

Can we decide what it is we are after here? Are you on about religious freedom in one breath, and in the next chastising the Catholics for not liking having Protestantism taught to their children in "Public" schools?

No religion was going to be given preferrence in this country in the early days no matter what anyone believed in particular because this country was trying to escape authoritarianism under the guise of the combination of Church and state epitomized in England.

Congratulations, you are ignorant about early American history, as well as European. Many of the colonies had established religions, all Protestant except for Maryland. The Federal gov't, for sure, was prohibited from playing favorites, but the states were not.

It had first been the King/Queen and Catholic oppression; but, when the Catholics meddled too far, it became the Monarch plus Church of England. And Church of England was (is) baaaad news too! Were catholics excluded? Yes, by catholics. Were Catholics oppressed? Nope; but, they were kept from pulling the same crap in America they'd done in Europe up to a point. Ya'll just got your nose bent out of shape because on US soil you got the same treatment everyone else got - you're just another religion.

Here's where you wash your hands and say the C of E is "Catholic" and baaaaaad news. Were the Catholics oppressed? "Nope" you say. I guess all of those "Irish need not apply" signs and the anti-Catholicism of the KKK are don't count? Al Smith? "Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion"? Any of this ring a bell?