Quote:
I don't remember what I said the last time you brought this up

Ah, I found that thread -- remember now that it was a letter to United Airlines about their choice of in-flight entertainment that I was referring to.

Bitt pretty much said what I think this smug ditty is implying. Maybe it's overly sensitive of me, but I didn't get past hearing the first verse on the headset before I was grossly insulted:

Her parents never took the young girl to church
Never spoke of His name,
Never read her His word.
Two non-believers walking lost in this world,

First he points out what we/I am missing (His deity) and then pretty conclusively says we are all lost. How anyone (as did several people on that other BBS) can escape that conclusion is beyond me.

There are times when I wonder if I am as insulting to various believers, but I cut myself some slack as the noisy minority position (and I don't go door to door!)

An interesting essay on NPR this evening by "religion commentator" Gustav Niebuhr (ah, bio here). The essay hit a couple of interesting points. The first was a pointer to the not-very-widely-remembered Robert Ingersoll and then went on to suggest what a boon it might be for the 2 main parties to court the votes of various agnostics, atheists, secular humanists and such.

I was interested in the essay, but I am thinking his notion of atheists as undecided/swing voters is pretty poorly conceived. Maybe Bush can get some agnostic votes, but I am going to guess that the more comfortable somebody is with not holding a belief in some deity, the more nervous a candidate with strong ties to an evangelical constituency is going to make them.

I will say I often get ticked off at the various attempts to estimate the prevalence of the different non-theist positions. Niebuhr said something like "only 1 to 3 percent of Americans are willing to say that they are atheists". OK, and are these so-called "strong" atheists? What I'd like to know one day is what percentage of people in the US are functionally (weak) atheists in terms of their beliefs (yes, let's count all of the agnostics who can't bear to say "atheist"!)

On a Blue/Red state tangent, I can say that I went to *eastern* washington on Saturday to work a rally. Lots of Bush/Cheney signs. On the main drag in Cle Elum, I looked up to see the sign for a local garage. Can't remember their name, but right below the name and right above the shop's phone was the familiar Christian fish... right next to the "ASE certified mechanic" logo.

I needed a 9 volt battery for my checkpoint clock, so I stopped at a Radio Shack on the main drag that also serves as a video store. They had just gotten Fahrenheit 9/11 DVD, but hadn't put it in the computer so were having a hard time checking it out to a woman who showed up to claim it. I asked "How's that going?" She said, "Oh, we got a waiting list." So even in the red part of our blue state, somebody is renting DVDs by heretics.

Sheesh, I think I am all out of free association!
_________________________
Jim


'Tis the exceptional fellow who lies awake at night thinking of his successes.