Glad this interesting thread came back. I'd meant to say I thought Midchuck nade a really telling observation in very few words:

If there were a hundred or so devout, born-again Christians in the country, and everyone else was atheist or agnostic, those hundred would all be shut up in laughing academys. They get taken seriously because there are so many of them.

I'll be sure to slip it into my own conversations from time to time, as though I thought it up for myself.