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Entry: Putin Beyond the Propaganda Link: http://www.takimag.com/site/article/putin_beyond_the_propoganda#17658 Post contents: <i>The fact is that both Russia and Serbia have experienced a revival in traditional faith as evidenced by the revival in recent years of monastic life, increased church participation, religious education in schools, the return of the chaplaincy to the military, and so on. </i> Without percentages, then no way to determine significance. We had the 4th Great Awakening in Gringoland beginning about 1978 and continuing to this day, yet I’d hardly say that Gringos are a very observant people. Facts, please, Mr Mac! -- whose substance in his writeback is about as serious as the nutritional value of the food after which he is named. <i>I don’t need no stinkin’ statistics to recognize black from white and right from wrong!</i> Someone should have read Mr. Mac his Miranda rights before he hit the keyboard. We have a self confessed ignoramus. Murder is wrong. Yet I need the facts proven beyond all reasonable doubt before I can render a guilty verdict. Mr Tvrtko has made the effort, and I thank him. I need citations for reliability and verifiability. In such conflicts, the truth is often the first casulaty. Remember when the British Press in 1914 were telling us the German were eating Belgian children? Yet let’s take, for the sake of argument, his evidence as reliable, and that 95% of Serbs are theists. Well, so say most Gringos as well, yet we are hardly a religious bunch. Religiosity is best judged by observance, something that can be seen and measured. For example, I don’t expect all observant Baptists to be hard shell (twice on Sunday and once on Wednesday), yet a Baptist whose church attendance is at best occasional, who has never made an altar call, who doesn’t know the words to “Just As I Am”, and has no knowledge of the great Baptist hymnologist B. B. McKinney, isn’t a Baptist – regardless of what he might tell a pollster. Mr. Tvrko confesses that church attendance in Serbia is low, proving him an honest man. 7% would speak for itself as to the degree of Serbian religiosity. Any stats for mosque attendance in Kosovo and Albania? And for the record, I am not an apologist for Albanian irredentism, any more than Serbian. Just the facts, Ma'am. Sent at: 2008 05 16