Michael Smith wrote:
>
>> Admittedly, the Gallup poll was silly, as they usually are. The list of
> "reasons" for going to church was clearly compiled by some smug
> secular-bourgeois Philistine with no understanding or experience of
> religion at all; and asking people about their reasons for going to
> church, or for anything else that they do, is dumb from the get-go.
Doug has often, & quite incorrectly, characterized me as seeing polls as "bullshit" (his word). I don't believe that. Polls accurately measure what they can measure. The problem lies with those who interpret what the polls mean. Fore example, he and others were impressed by polls showing overwhelming popular support for the war in Iraq -- while I argued that 14% opposition at the very beginning was a huge number and the only important number in the polls. Michael is quite right, of course, in disregarding polls which try to measure the _reasons_ for churchgoing.
Carrol