rule, britannia
I love the UK. The six months I lived there were the best of my life. When I return — and Zeus knows I will — I will hug a lamppost in Charing Cross, and all the Queen’s horses and men will not budge me. Enough intelligence, wit, history, beauty, eccentricity, originality and ennui is packed into those little islands to satisfy my many hungers for the rest of my days.
One reason I find it attractive (not by any means the most significant, but one) is the normalized presence of religious disbelief. For a small taste of how deeply different the British religious situation is, watch this recent PSA by the British Humanist Association. You’ll want to see it more than once to take in all of the information and implications:
Now picture anything remotely like it in the U.S.