Asklemmy

just about every christian I know sees other sects and offshoots as a separate religion. it's very sneech-like.

Schism was the very first thing the Christian church learned to do.

Catholics believe in a religious hierarchy, Cardinals, bishops, Pope e.t.c.

Christians USUALLY think hierarchy in religion is almost blasphemous. But really it's just so they can kinda just do whatever the fuck they want and not worry about the Pope excommunicating them.

same shit different pile?

as someone that grew up in the South and was surrounded by evangelicals, Catholics were seen as weird/possibly satanic, depending on the person, and not really Christians because of the saints and Mary worship. They're polytheistic since they don't just focus on Jesus Christ.

Platypuses and mammals.

Platypuses are mammals, but they're weird enough that you can't usefully generalise from them to anything else, to the point that lumping them in together could be actively misleading.

Same deal.

Think of it as two different tribes

I've heard "Protestants and Christians" too. It hasn't been that long really since some of them openly hated the other.

The Christians are just whiny Catholics. Protesting all day.

Probably because depending on the context "Christians" is likely referring to "Protestants." There are some very significant differences between Catholic and Protestant Christianity, moreso than between Protestant denominations, whose differences tend to be a bit more trivial. Other comments make some good points, but it is not too far of a stretch to say that Catholicism may be different enough to be considered a separate religion (I don't know who gets to draw these lines). But in the most technical sense, yes, Catholics are a subset of Christians.