Unfortunately, fringes always seem to get the most air and print time. Just this Friday, the NY Times admitted that "assault weapon" was a media fabrication initiated by gun control advocates - a fringe. As anybody and everybody who hits news gets "eviscerated" by some fringe loon, this is not a big deal. What is a big deal is when normally level-headed people believe that "the fringe" is restricted to only the side they disagree with.

Exactly. I get so tired of being asked "Then what *do* you believe?" with the emphasis on the do. My usual response is "Concerning what?" And there the questioner typically falters because they simply cannot wrap their minds around divorcing that question from some supernatural belief.

By all means, not all religious people are like that. My ex's father was a prof emeritus with five friggin' degrees in theological studies and we got along and understood each other just fine. He was, however, exceptional.

They did it as a humorous example, but there are many words which have negligible or synonymous lip movements. And as someone pointed out, ventriloquism is easily learned and *will* be as soon as authorities start using lip reading software.