And the least religious President in recent memory may have been Reagan.

Not yet, sj. Ben is. I can't take the pressure this year. I'm going to have to tear Ben away soon, to make sure he studies for his big social studies test. I think I'll give him to the third inning.

It's awful. Take Ben away from the tv and save him the emotional scars. I wish someone could come save me from watching it.

sj, stack the cats, baybee: [link]

I was going to write something about how much that house would sell for in my Bay Area neighborhood, (it looks like a bargain to me), but I've decided I'm depressed enough over the housing situation and I'm just going to sit here quietly and sob.

Sobbing with Sparky. Also quietly because at work. In a library. Shhh.

dw, where did you get your church attendance statistics? They don't jive with what I've seen, either as statistics or my own personal experience, but both the stats I've seen before and my own personal experience may be skewed and/or incorrect.

eta: every now and then I just like to go with the stereotype!

sj, stack the cats, baybee

Not strong enough to save me today.

Feh. I got all excited because I saw office supplies at Jilli's Cafe Press, and then when I clicked through found mouse pads. I thought I was going to find lovely stationery and pens and such. Pete and Jilli, we need stationery and pens and such!

I am such an office supply addict. It's just not even funny.

Oh, and the designs are gorgeous. I'm seriously considering light plate covers, but I don't think I have singletons at home. I'll have to check.

Yeah, I don't think W's ever displayed a lot of Biblical knowledge. Has he pretended to? I may just have missed it on account of the purposefully not paying attention to anything political until a date to be determined.

Sure, when he 'stopped' drinking by 'finding jesus' (as opposed to something rash like, oh, AA) and studied Acts line by line for two years. And then got trumped on biblical knowledge by a jewish comedian. I'd say that's pretending quite a bit.

Isn't a nominal knowledge of the Koran expected in countries with large nominally Muslim populations? Do you think a candidate for political office in Lebanon could get away with saying anything dumb about the Koran?

As I understand it, other than Turkey (which is avowedly secular in its governance) any other country with a Muslim majority is to some degree either officially or effectively a theocracy. Of course, Iraq was pretty secular...

One could, but it doesn't match with my experience. I've found WAY more random Americans not know things *I*, a heathen non-believer, thought was common knowledge. In Jamaica, they'll happily chant text at you, and in the UK -- well, they can teach the Bible in the UK without fear of repercussion. Religious Studies wasn't a rare class among the people I knew.

That's what having an "official religion" will do for you. :) But then, Americans can be really dense with "basic knowledge" about anything. Like that survey a few years ago where a percentage of Americans couldn't find Kansas on a map.

dw, where did you get your church attendance statistics? They don't jive with what I've seen, either as statistics or my own personal experience, but both the stats I've seen before and my own personal experience may be skewed and/or incorrect.

These guys have dissected the numbers: [link]

I say 33% because that's what I heard years ago. If you average the high and low on the stat, 33% seems to be right.

My impression is that the fact that we're not an officially Christian nation scares the shit out of a large portion of the voting population.

I read a lot of "WE NEED MORE GOD IN THIS COUNTRY, RELIGION IS IN IMMANENT DANGER OF BEING FORCED OUT OF PUBLIC DISCOURSE" from even my left-leaning religious relatives.

This is a mentality that's mind-boggling and frightening to me. I don't understand how anyone could conclude that Christianity is in any kind of danger whatsover in this country, let alone use that as an excuse to push us ever closer to a de facto theocracy.

Not to mention the fact that Christianity has weathered far more dangerous threats in the last 2000 years than just a portion of the American electorate wishing people would calm down about the God thing already.

Technically, it was Don Evans who got trumped. He was in the same Bible study group as W.