When they are in the majority, they don’t even seem to be able to imagine alternatives–

I never understood the R. move to do away with parliamentary procedures, ie the filibuster, that once they were out of power THEY’D want to use themselves.

Or their blindness that various imperial tools they were giving the presidency would be used against them too.

denelian: I do apologize for spelling your name “wronf”[sic].

And you’re welcome for the link, I found the actual survey data to be pretty neat.

first, its kinda mean of me to point out… but you spelled my name wronf :p

second - OMG, and thanx for the link. i find it interesting that there is a seperations between “other religions” and “other world religions” (or is that “otherworld” religions? klingon? Jedi?)

and it has “Orthodox”, but Orthodox WHAT? (the thingy that is to tell me what specific bits fall under each categorization appears to be broken)

its very very nifty, and you are now my new favorite internet person for linking it for me despite any misspellings (yours or mine.)

It’s not just that we exist, but that we say what we think.

http://religions.pewforum.org/affiliations

I would have been surprised if they had left us out, since they’ve been interviewing pagan and Wiccan groups for their surveys for quite a while.

But, you are correct about media coverage of the study.

Charlotte, I’m not sure I understand your comment. I also don’t think that “the majority opinion here [is that] the only good Liberal is an atheist Liberal,” and it’s certainly not my view. Rather, I just don’t think that being (the right variety of) theist makes one a more important class of liberal than other people, nor that not getting special rights and standing based on being the (right variety of) theist makes one a second class citizen.

If not, we end up in this weird place where LLEs don’t desire the banning of abortion above everything else (if at all), grasp the basics of the Dem position, maybe even understand how we want to utilize rational, responsible evidence-tested - and even deeply moral - methods which actually do reduce the numbers (and neeed for) abortions - but will just grit their teeth and stay home/vote for Republicans because we haven’t provided some weird stroking/validation/reassurance of how very, very important they are.

If, in the majority opinion here, the only good Liberal is an atheist Liberal, then you might just have hit the nail on the head. Dismissiveness cuts both ways.

no really, wait a sec.

am i actually truly reading that correctly?

what do “secular unaffiliated” and “religious unaffiliated” mean?

i mean, *I* am pagan. i was raised pagan, most of my family is pagan (i have one sister who converted to catholic when she got married). where do I (and my family except the one sister) fall in this statistical set? where do Jews and Muslims and Buddists and Taoists and Hindus and everyone else fall? because i know people who are ALL of the above… i actually only know one christian who goes to church (again, not counting that one sister)

oh, wait… i forget, that the major media DO NO UNDERSTAND that one can be religious and NOT be christian. is that where the gap is?