----- Original Message ----- From: "Baardwijk, J. van DTO/SLWPD/RZO/BOZO" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, December 05, 2001 2:09 AM Subject: RE: Tragedy in Israel
> > -----Oorspronkelijk bericht----- > > Van: Jeffrey Miller [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > > Verzonden: Tuesday, December 04, 2001 22:20 > > Aan: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Onderwerp: Re: Tragedy in Israel > > > I'm not sure - I've never seen data on the religion of our leaders > > (other than what they choose to tell us about, over and over and over > > again..) However, I'm not really super comfortable using population > > distribution as a litmus test for racism/intolerance/etc. > > I would not go as far as to attribute the lack of non-Christians in the > government to racism or intolerance. What I do find strange (and somewhat > worrying) however is that in a government "for the people, by the people", > 14% of the population does not seem to be represented in that government. Well, let me try to answer that. If you are talking about the lack of representation of identifiable minorities, like Moslems, then it is reasonable to assume that it is reflection of prejudices in the US. For example, if one were to check the blood type of Senators, one would expect, with a 97.5% probability, that there would be at least 8 people with Rh- blood. I'm sure someone knows that, but since it is invisible, it is reasonable to presume that there is no discrimination against people, like me, who have Rh- blood. So, if you would argue that there is still prejudice against blacks, Hispanics, or Moslems in the US, I would have to agree. We're working on it and things are improving. But, if the US were color blind, we would not see a statistically significant lack of representation. Now, lets discuss the non-religious. That's a very hard number to pin down. One question would be whether they went to church or not. But, that's not a good measure because only about half of the people who say they are Christian go to church. Heck, Reagan, the darling of the religious right, always had plenty of excuses for not going. My guess is that many members of Congress are really non-religious. Since a lot of voters are religious, few would make anti-Christian statements. But, I know of at least one militant atheist who holds high office. The governor of Minnesota has stated "anyone who is religious is weak-minded." After that statement, his poll numbers were still positive. Since the number of professed atheists is estimated at 1.5 million at the religious tolerance website, atheists actually hold a higher than expected fraction of governorships. In responding to Sonja, I'll quote some of the same numbers concerning minorites in the Netherlands. I'll also quote disturbing (to me at least) European poll results. Dan M.
