Reply #79: uh, not all European nations are catholic

[RainDog]

your post is a "talking point" I've heard before, but it's not accurate. The Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, GB, for instance, all became protestant-identified nations after the Reformation. They are just as secular, if not more so, than catholic-identified nations.

I can share some actual experience, since I have family members who were born and grew up in a European nation. I can tell you that they are taught science in the classroom, not fundie belief. there is no discussion about including religion in science. They learn about the history of western thought that moved away from religion with the enlightenment (the same ideas that led to the foundation of the U.S.) Atheism is not a big deal there because people recognize that one can be moral and ethical without a named god to scare you into this.

they, rather than the so-called christians here, believe in caring for their fellow citizens and thus enacted laws to bring a basic level of human rights to people via universal health care and subsisdized food. Salaries allow a living wage and the unemployed do not have to live on the street. They do not kill people as an apparatus of the state via the death penalty. they have a higher quality of life than people here, overall. -- this is my experience from a "catholic" nation. they could care less what the pope says. they live their lives as secular modern thinking humans.

the level of misunderstanding about what life is like for most people in Europe is another example of American mis-education.