Quote:
Originally posted by Azimaith:
I'd rather have a exact number rather than a rough estimate with a margine of error of 9,500,000 as you said anywhere from 500k to 10 mill. Thats a bigarse area to cover, in my opinion, for the US any group with less than 5million members is a fringe group. That is of course comparing to the tens of millions of christians we have here.
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Well there is a lot of difficulty in nailing down how many Pagans there are for a varity of reasons. Barnes and Nobles estimates a U.S. customer base for books about Wicca and other Earth Religions at 10,000,000. That stat is from 1999.
Here is a link with an overveiw:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/wic_nbr.htm
Besides, we cannot be compared to Christians in relation to the word "fringe" according the dictionary definition of the word. We are not secondary nor peripheral to Christians nor are we a form of extremist Christianity. We are a minortity compared to Christians but we are not fringe.
In relation to the rest of society, we vote, pay taxes, are doctors, teachers, soldiers and students. We live in the world and partcipate as citizens. We have family, friends. We give to charity and enjoy the good things in life. If we are a fringe group, so is everyone esle.
Bottom line, using the word Fringe to describe is technically inacurate. It also seems to be used in a deragtory manner by people who are prejudice and biased against pagans and would love to spread the false notion that we are a crazy baby-eating fringe group with nothing to offer society. They want to make us out not to have any real or meaningful spirituality. People like President Bush and Representative Barr would carry this misconception further and try to deny the rights of Wiccan soldiers to worship for example.
Nothing personal, but using the word fringe to describe pagans and you are inviting a strong, relentless rebuttal. It is innaccurate and wrong. Whether if we are 100,000 or 10,000,000 we are a minority group not a fringe group.