Wow, some great posts, many of which likely took a while to put together.

My own perspective has me siding with Soul, as is the case more often than not. However, as an aside, Soul calls others out for their "unfounded" views. I use "unfounded" as my own shorthand description of the various ways in which Soul, essentially, does to his "debate" opponents what he criticizing those opponents doing to him.

Soul's arguments, while somewhat condescending, are tougher to refute from an academic perspecitve. By the way, the "other" side's arguments, are right there in terms of being presented in a condescending manner. I like to do this, too, but there is little room left for me on either side of these issues. I must say, though, Priggly's calling Ron Paul the only knowlegeable and honest member of Congress was an unneeded 82 mph fastball thrown into Soul's wheelhouse!

I have found Christians to be as big a crooks as anyone else throughout my life, but I have found them to be more subtle, than say, non-Christian Asians. I have also found some Christians to be absolutely overbearing in the righteous nature of their beliefs (Please be, Jesus, I hope I'm right about that!!) I will freely admit that I interact with more Christians (some religous, most not), than non-Christians, by a good margin, and perhaps I've been swayed. I was raised Catholic, so I confess that as a factor in the mix that must be considered in figuring where I might be coming from.

And, although Soul's comments ring right and true, there is something about the Priggly/Pic that demand they not be dismissed by mere logic or academic argument, whether based on fact or not. Things don't always go the way the academic mind would conclude they would or should. First, there's lots of people that think like Priggly/Pic, and they do influence the "space/time" of the socio/political economic universe. Second, there are many that draw similar conclusions, without relying on the kind of statements of Priggly/Pic, that one might take issue with or, perish the thought, condescend to!

Ultimately, who is more right and more wrong is not something I'm able to figure, especially for any given period of time. But, if ECU goes up 8 cents in a day, I can figure that I'm better off in one significant aspect of life. So, for those of us to whom making some money is important, there is some comfort in the certainty of numbers rather than opinion, irrespective of how well articulated.

Oh, btw, Zenyatta's the best filly/mare thoroughbred ever, case closed!!