(October 10, 2012 at 1:28 pm)DeistPaladin Wrote: Point taken. We still have plenty of "dog whistles".
Our first black president is also the first president who's had to prove he's "one of us" by publishing his birth certificate, and the first president who's been heckled by a congressman during a state of the union address, and the first president repeatedly and seriously accused of being a "socialist". I don't think that's a coincidence.
Everything changes in stages. Old ideas die like radioactive particles decay with their "half lives".
He is most certainly not the first president seriously accused of being a socialist. That statement is off by more than 75 years. I think your presidential history is a little rusty. Every president is subject to heavy criticism and Obama's is nothing special.
Back on subject however, the change is the number of the truly religious has already been astonishing in the United States. Most reliable church counts put attendance at around 20% of the population. So even if the level of belief is high in the US, the level of actually religious practice has plummeted and will continue to plummet.
