Kent:

I appreciate your scholarly and informed response to my remarks. I certainly meant no disrespect to true believers. I believe in tolerance and in freedom of religious choice. I have to agree that over-simplifying or "typing" folks as I may have appeared to do does a disservice to some, though it was not my intent. My brief is with those who seem to live their lives in fear, who are frequently reactionary and intolerant of the beliefs of others - in other words, zealots of all stripes, many of whom only selectively understand or apply the tenets of their own professed faith. It is from that base that I usually see or hear the heated objections to the supernatural in folk music and folklore.

In America these days, we seem to want to go to any lengths in order to offend no one; i.e., the P.C. movement. I am concerned that in taking this to an extreme, truth, free speech (including folk music and scholarship) are inevitably compromised. We will all be the less for it.