I bought a scarecrow today, for a price reasonable enough that I probably couldn't buy constituent parts and make one myself for less. I've got it propped up against the tree out front. I wonder if Daniel will notice it when he drives in.

Islam, Wicca, and atheism each comprise less than 1% of the American population.

True, but look at their growth rates over the last ten years. The number of Christians (according to the table ibid.) grew by 8M, a 5% gain. Islam jumped by half a million, but that's a doubling. The Pagan Metroplex is only now getting picked up by surveys, but I'd wager it's at least doubled in size as well. And the "nonreligious" group has doubled as well, giving it 13% of the population.

Think about it this way: You have a product that has an 85-90% market share. One day you look at the numbers and notice that while sales of your product have risen 5% over the last 10 years, competitors have doubled their sales over that period, and your market share is now under 80%. Would you go, "Oh, that's great, more the merrier." Or would you start working on a plan to staunch the flow of customers to your competitors?

(Info from adherents.com. eta: Please pardon me while I fall over laughing as I notice that "Wicca/Pagan/Druid" is on their list of organized religions. 'Cause..no. Really, we're not.

You give Christianity far more credit for being organized than you should.

Yowtch. The Pale Hose are crushing the Bosox.

Sadly, it's getting so when I hear "Christian" what I hear is: (stereotypes ahoy, mind you) "I believe everything that Jerry Falwell tells me to.Life is just easier when the people at church tell me what to think so I don't have to." "This country was a better place before women got all uppity and you could still carry a gun everywhere and hit your kids." I'm very sorry...I know that's not true.

But you know that's not true. You know that the Christians on this board thinks Falwell spouts bullshit and women are co-equal with men and guns should be like mouths and not shot off at will and that children are lethal cute-bombs.

And that's my problem with this stupid stereotyping. It's basically a crypto-elitism. I am better than you because you __________. And you fill in the blank with whatever you want and feel all smug about it.

It's all fucking bullshit, people, no matter who says it. In the end, we're all dead anyway.

But there are some scary people whom I don't like dominating my state's religious discourse so that it is easy to be poisoned.

Yes, they are of the devil, because they use religion as a political lever to entrench themselves further into power. Religion and power do not mix. Those Christians who have helped push the GOP bandwagon up the hill will soon find themselves going off the cliff with it.

Hee-Haw the Giant Donkey God

I just found my new diety. Sam Wainwright is our Pope.

Yowtch. The Pale Hose are crushing the Bosox.

Considering that Boston doesn't have a bullpen, they may already be doomed in this series.

I just found my new diety.

The Pastafarians will be pissed.

I think I'm starting to understand why my mom seems more conservative and less tolerant now than she did when I was growing up. Partly it's because she's older, yes, and partly it's that I've gotten way more liberal since leaving rural Alabama behind and going to live among the Yankees, Brits, and Left Coasters. But I do think she really has changed, and largely because our part of Alabama, while still as red-state and Bible Belt as can be in most ways, really has gotten a lot more secular and a lot more diverse WRT religions and lifestyles over the past 20 years. While she doesn't buy into the notion that Christians are horribly persecuted, and she and my dad considered Roy Moore an embarrassment to the state, she doesn't quite know what to do with all this change. Things like my Wiccan cousin or seeing women in Muslim headcoverings right there in Birmingham freak her right out in a way I have a hard time wrapping my urban coastal-dwelling brain around.

Should be interesting to see how it plays out over the next few decades, though. IME, Christians of the same theological bent who live smack-dab in the buckle of the Bible Belt get more bent out of shape about t insert bogeyman of choice here than Christians who are equally conservative theologically but live in places like Philly or Seattle where they actually meet the bogeyfolk and therefore aren't freaked out by the mere existence of different faiths and lifestyles.

Not sure what my point is, just rambling a bit...

I just found my new diety. Sam Wainwright is our Pope.

"Passing of the Peace" is replaced with "Passing of the SAA-LUTE!!!"

Of course, since the schism between the Buckis and the Royites, there's been tension.

Yowtch. The Pale Hose are crushing the Bosox.

t whimper

Considering that Boston doesn't have a bullpen, they may already be doomed in this series.

Don't count us out yet.