At 09:54 4-12-01 -0800, Jim Sharkey wrote:

>Jeroen wrote:
> >If you are not Christian, your chances of getting a job in politics
> >seem to be considerably smaller; how many members of Congress and
> >the Senate do NOT call themselves Christians? And when was the last
> >time the US had a non-Christian (FREX, a Muslem) president?
>
>But isn't that a function of the population in the U.S. being predominantly
>Christian?  You make it sound like some vast conspiracy to keep the other
>religions out of office.  I'm curious as to what percentage of people in the
>U.S. are at least nominally Christian of their own accord.  Assuming that
>percentage is sufficiently high, which I believe it most likely is, doesn't
>it follow that it's more likely that the people entering politics are going
>to be Christian statistically?

True, but it also follows that a certain percentage of people entering 
politics are not Christians.

According to the CIA World Factbook 2001, 84% of the population is 
Christian, 2% is Jewish, 4% follow an other religion, and 10% are not 
religious. Is this reflected in Congress en Senate? Following these 
statistics, 10 members of the Senate and 44 members of Congress should be 
non-religious; 4 members of the Senate should be Muslem/Hindu/<whatever> 
and 17 members of Congress should be Muslem/Hindu/<whatever>.

Is that the actual situation?


Jeroen

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