'And I Say There Are 58 Angels Dancing On The Head Of A Pin! Vote For Me!'

Both sides putting faith in appeals to religious voters

Thu Oct 7, 9:40 AM ET
By Lisa Anderson Tribune national correspondent

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"If religion were not an important issue to many Americans, politicians would not be talking about religion. They are after votes," said Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, at a recent Interfaith Alliance forum on politics and religion in Atlanta.

Indeed, woe to the politician who discounts the significance of religion. According to an August poll by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, about 85 percent of Americans said religion is important in their lives. Moreover, in the same poll, 72 percent of registered voters told Pew that "it is important to them that a president have strong religious beliefs." [em. mine]
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I don't see a need to comment on this. I'll just say it again — there is still time to move.


In the midst of absurdity the trumpet is certain.
    —Edward O. Wilson

God is the immemorial refuge of the incompetent, the helpless, the miserable. They find not only sanctuary in His arms, but also a kind of superiority, soothing to their macerated egos; He will set them above their betters.
    —H. L. Mencken

The worst government is the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.
    —H. L. Mencken [Mencken really understood.]

History I believe furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose.
    —Thomas Jefferson

The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists; indeed the passion is the measure of the holder's lack of rational conviction. Opinions in politics and religion are almost always held passionately.
    —Bertrand Russell

Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.
    —Seneca (the Younger)

Caesar: I thought you had reservations about the gods.
Gracchus: Privately, I believe in none of them. Neither do you. Publicly, I believe in them all.
    —Spartacus