@specter Recently, i read "The Witches" by Stacy Schiff which is about the Salem witch trials, and she goes into a lot of detail about Puritan beliefs and culture. One of the things that stuck with me is that they believed and told their children they were born stained with sin and had to spend their lives redeeming themselves. There are diary entries from children and parents that describe how devastating this was for them emotionally. American culture is born of really ugly things.