(from Logan) "all religions were entities ruled by majority. Unless the priest was the only follower, a majority would take over the religion and make it their own." In function, this is all too often true. However secularists, when they assume that they can apply this thinking to religion, are forgetting what "religion" is and what it's role is supposed to be. Religion is not just (or even primarily) "belief in God". It is "the search for meaning and purpose in life" and (especially) "the attempt to determine what kind of people we ought to be and what kind of world we ought to pursue". With this in mind, it is (always, completely) impossible to have a "religion" that is designed to tell people what they want to hear. The whole idea of a religion is to tell us what is good, evil, necessary, more important, less important, etc whether we like it or not. A "religion" based on "democratic principles" is meaningless. It tells us (collectively) that "whatever we say goes", and thus has no power to tell an effective majority what it doesn't want to hear. Effective Religion says (to quote the Bible) "Let God be true, and every man a liar." Democracy is not only inconsistent with this concept, it is irreconcialable with it. Religion is thus in some way similar to the Constitution. It represents precisely that part of the Founder's thinking (be he Moses, Christ, Mohammed or, for that matter, Marx) which is NOT subject to change and the whimsy of the majority.