A good example of Rousseau´s civil religion

[Annuit Coeptis]

The last "Catholic statesman" that the U.S. had was John F. Kennedy, son of the Nazi appeaser Joe Kennedy. I'm more or less not into religions; I'm largely agnostic and prefer philosophy as a tonic to existential issues over religious writ (I don't believe in so-called divine revelation for example; God will be discovered from a human perspective and not because some prophet or "messiah" said so). When I see some politician going on about the Bible and the Constitution in the same setence, like Palin or Bachmann, I want to vomit. To quote Thomas Paine "I detest the Bible as I detest everything that is cruel."

I think this is one way the U.S.A. differs from Europe; it is a post-Christian country. The first. The Old World still clings to a Christianity in some ways: traditionally, socially, introspectively, etc. You guys are closer to Rome than we are in America. We were a bunch of rebels who tossed a monarch out on his arse who had "the divine right of kings" and set up the first actual republic in the world since the Roman Republic. Makes ya wonder. Any good American doesn't need a Bible, a cathecism; we've got the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.