And while we're on the subject

There is always Alison and I am sure she had many supporters.
The golden rule is to go for the ball, not the man - the 'ad hominem' rule. We are free to be as critical as we like of beliefs, ideas, theories but not to make comments about the personality,sincerity or honesty of other members.

So what makes anyone think that "well-educated, left of centre politically, and scornful of religion" (not my choice of words, just quoting) is not fairly representative of the population? [wooden spoon emoticon] [taking the piss emoticon]

"may I suggest that those who disagree with the more 'active' posters do not wish to join in such strong threads?"

Yep. Scaredy-pusses the lot of 'em.

I do sometimes wonder if I, and now Lilygran, are the only Christians (in lily's case) and trying-to-stay-reasonably-Christian (in my case) on here.

I am not sure what this thread is for - it is pretty obvious that the people who bother to contribute to threads about politics and religion are those with an interest in those subjects and possibly strongly held views. There is nothing to stop everybody joining in. Lilygran, perhaps you could try to galvanise the believers to make a contribution. If they don't want to, you can hardly blame those of who are interested in putting forward our views.
I don't know how often we have to repeat the position which, as far as I am aware, is common to all the 'atheist wing'. We don't believe in any god. We don't want those who do believe in any particular god to be able to influence law making to suit their own beliefs. That's it, really. Not aggresive, not militant, just asking for freedom not to believe.
I admit to being well educated (at considerable effort, as a mature student),
left -wing, if that means concerned for fairness and justice, and anti any kind of prejudice such as racism, sexism, homophobia.......I see nothing wrong in any of this.

MiceElf I am reasonably well-educated, left of centre politically, but not scornful of religious belief. Just dont believe in a god myself. I joined Gransnet because I thought the thing I would have in common with others is my grandchildren

It occurs to me that sizeable section of the population wouldn't necessarily have views on politics or religion and certainly wouldn't be interested in contributing to a forum such as this. I don't know what the turn out for a general election is, but I know the weather can affect that, so I would therefore assume there's not a great political commitment for those who wouldn't brave the elements. Similarly, how many regular religious attendees are there as a percentage of the population? A lot of people just go about their daily lives and don't really engage with politics or religion and are only interested in the things that affect them directly. I think many gransnetters are obviously interested in all sorts of things, but how representative of the nanas of the country are we?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the point being made is that the membership of this forum is probably unrepresentative of the population as a whole. It is self selecting and as the owners of the site choose not to make the numbers of members public and data about religious belief, political persuasion, marital status or level of education is necessarily unavailable, there is no way of discovering how representative or otherwise those who post on this forum, may be.

It would, I suppose be possible to do a meta analysis of all the posts and make an informed guess, and, this I think is what is being done here.

It certainly seems to this reader that frequent posters on this forum tend to be well educated, left of centre politically and scornful of religious belief. But I may be wrong.

absent I am just trying to make a point without putting in too many details. I am sure you know what I meant. Do I need to spell out every detail to avoid this nit-picking?

Movedalot Do you seriously believe that the Labour party is left wing?

absent and anno didn't realise it needed saying as I thought we all knew that!

We got what we voted for, like it or not it is the voters who are responsible for the government we have. However, my point was that if we are all as left wing as the posts I've seen seem to imply why don't we have a labour government?

Why do you think the current government was voted in, Movedalot? The coalition came about because no one party had enough seats to form a government and I doubt if many of us voted for a coalition!

Movedalot It's a coalition – that's because no political party had a mandate to form a government.

I think you're right, Moved.

I wasn't looking at the number of posters or at individual posts, just the way the thread moved. Quite subjective in any case. There's me.......

It seems to me it is also the case that the ative once are anti the current government as well but it would surprise me if this were representative as they were voted in after all.

Having observed the way some posts have gone for the last few months, may I suggest that those who disagree with the more 'active' posters do not wish to join in such strong threads?

I think I would say 'critical of' rather than 'anti'. Bit like politics. One can't be anti-politics because politics is just how people/societies organise themselves, but one can be critical of political ideas or practices.

And in any case, so what?

Did you, by any chance, do a similar bit of research to find out about gransnetters who are anti-atheist? Just for balance, natch.