Happy Sunday-Monday

Happy Sunday, (Or Monday) Church-goers and rational individuals alike. I recently read of the appalling, needless death of a 31 year old woman in Ireland who died after being denied an obviously medically-necessary abortion. After all, the hospital employed "good Christians," who couldn't comply with the emergency procedure that might have spared her life. The doctors or administrators, or whoever it was who decided, notified her that "Ireland is a Catholic country." And that's all they wrote. Except that, to their credit, Irishmen and women have been outraged by this outrage, and have been protesting in droves. I'm tempted to think that each and every Catholic county on this planet is a living hell. Tell me I'm wrong. But the same applies to officially Protestant countries, or even unofficially Protestant ones like USA. And I don't mean to single out the papacy or the Lutherans. Israel is an officially Jewish nation, also a hell on Earth, probably for its Jews and certainly for the Arabs whose lives it controls. Iran, a Muslim nation that demonstrates what an Islamic hell is for its citizens. Hinduism has shown itself to be an awful inferno, at least for its hundreds of millions of "untouchables." I favor the idea of a secular nation, if we must have nations at all, which seems to be the case, if we are to live any kind of 21st Century life style. You know, one with roads, bridges, water treatment plants, etc. In the meantime, Humanity should evolve beyond the need for all these barbaric, anachronistic religions, ASAP. I'd say those countries without an official religion, or those that only pay lip-service to a religion, are better. Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Holland, Finland, all come to mind. Even a few larger European countries, like present-day Germany. Canada id no doubt the best in North America, though the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, oddly enough, gives a big shout-out to Christianity. Costa Rica is probably the best in all of Latin America, whether or not it's officially Catholic. And Bhutan is probably the best in all Asia; it appears to be at least semi-officially Buddhist, which I've always tried, rightly or wrongly, to view as being more a philosophy than a religion. None of those European countries, BTW, are anywhere near perfect, but all surpass the united States on a wide variety of socio-economic indicators. Hell, come to think of it, so does Slovakia, at least with respect to its health-care. Oops, went way, way off on a tangent. Wel, while I'm at it, I forgot to mention Venezuela, and all those other Latin countries that are trending socialist. They have a hell of legacy of poverty, inequality and violence, but at least they're trying to improve, with apparent considerable success. Jesus saves at CitiBank.