[SeattleUte]

I'm traveling in Italy. Hit the Vatican and all the major religious sites in Rome. It's ironic how here of all places you don't see any of the awful literalism and superstition you see in Latin American Catholicism and US Protestantism (including Mormonism). It's all symbolism and much of it is quite clearly of a piece with the forerunner pagan belief systems. No doubt this is what has liberated this part of the world essentially to be the fountainhead of Western visual arts if not much other creativity.