Sophia shares her opinion with the room that religion is historically a catalyst for war, and interviews that although she enjoys being Jewish, she's been having an "emotional crisis" lately about whether God exists. We can probably date that crisis to the day she met Taylor. Laurel doesn't see what the big deal is. Nine-year-old Alex speaks up and says that most religions have a lot of stuff in common, and they can focus on that instead of the differences. Olivia is particularly strident in the meeting, and interviews that she's so strong -- so very strong -- in her Christian beliefs that she doesn't want to hear about any others. Yes, that's strength for you. Anjay asks the room what's so wrong with "learning about other religions." Which would be a valid question, if they were proposing a discussion of comparative religions instead of an actual service. Everyone starts yelling, and Mike yells at everyone to shut up, and everyone actually shuts up. I can't believe how often that works. Have these kids really never been told to shut up before? I have more catching up to do than I thought. After listening to everyone's opinion, Mike announces that they're going to do it the Council's way anyhow. So there. As the meeting breaks up, he glowers at the crowd as though he's just daring someone to challenge his authority to tell them how to worship. Mike interviews that the Council makes the decisions, and the town has to deal with it. Well, I'm glad to see that he's trying to learn some new leadership skills, but it's a net negative, because he's learning them from Taylor.

Alex interviews that there shouldn't be so much "arguments and yucky stuff" about the issue, so he takes it upon himself to conduct a survey of the town's religion, probably in hopes of forestalling further "violennnnce." He compares the religious hoo-hah to the story of the Tower of Babel. I would like to remind you, in case you have forgotten, that Alex is nine. I'm not used to hearing this level of insight come from a mouth that has one front tooth in it. The final results: a Christian majority, "a few" Jews, one Hindu, and three atheists. "I classified them together," Alex apologizes (as though there's really a Dawkins faction and a Gould faction or something), "and a few other people were 'other.'"