The Catholic Church has a history of reformers and I find it offensive you would call them crypto-protestants, because they loved the Church and wanted to improve her, rather than ditching her and creating their own groups.
I didn't call them crypto-Protestants. Many of them
were marginalized by the church and considered crypto-Protestants at the time. Erasmus' books were put on the Index later in the century. So don't get in a huff. It's simply the facts of history, not my personal opinion. I don't considered them crypto-Protestants.
Also, you say that like Hus or Luther didn't love the church and want to improve her. Neither
wanted to create their own groups, but once they (or their followers) were outside the church, they did.
In fact, that's the most interesting counterfactual of all: what if the Catholic Church had coopted Hus in the fifteenth century and allowed communion in both kinds and worship in the vernacular, and then allowed Luther to do on teaching and publishing in Wittenburg and done away with indulgence sales? What if the Reformation could have been confined to the Reformed and Anabaptists, and the Catholic Church had basically behaved in the sixteenth century in the same way it behaved at Vatican II?
This is completely untrue. Galileo is praised by atheists to denounce religion as against science, thus stupid and ignorant. Galileo is one example on one very particular issue of science because it seemingly contradicted scripture. This was not an issue among other sciences which the Church promoted and supported. Thus, the only thing protestantism would have furthered is heliocentrism, but I believe they would have considered that heretical at the time too.
Did I just mention the scientific revolution and you assumed that I was sneaking in a common Protestant position? Did you read what I actually wrote? I said the Scientific Revolution would have proceeded apace and only perhaps faster due to the one instance of Galileo's trial- exactly what you ended up saying.
This is profoundly wrong. One- Mexico is part of North America.
Oh for the love of.... Mexico is not part of the North American political tradition, and that's what's under consideration. If you're going to be nitpicky then no one is going to want to play.
Moreover, everything you say subsequently falls under this point: the North American political tradition as it developed in the Atlantic seaboard British colonies would not have developed as it did, and the North American political tradition would simply not exist.
I also do think the natives would disagree with you. The French were far more peaceful with natives and the Spanish colonized and intermarried. The British wiped out natives, pushing them further and further into the interior. None of them were benign, but the natives would have been better off without the British genocide.
Well this is just untrue. The Spanish and Portuguese committed horrendous atrocities against the Native Americans that make British crimes, and later American crimes, pale in comparison.
Catholics didn't start this thread. I wish you had held yourself to a higher standard and decided not to do exactly what you condemned and then tried to push off on Catholics like we started it.
Dude, people were literally posting just the words "better" and "worse." I exactly that from Protestants, but seriously, aren't Catholics supposed to intelligent and nuanced? What I tried to do in my post was show that the world wouldn't be unequivocally better or worse, but somewhat better in certain areas (theology, the church), and decidedly worse in others (political structure, international relations).
I speak for myself, but this is probably one of the most interesting threads that I've read on CF before, but... the topic is starting to fly way over my head lol. 
