The comments keep on coming, so… reposted to the top AGAIN
28 Percent Believe the Bible Is Literally True
A little more than one quarter of Americans believe the Bible is the literal word of God, down 10 percentage points since 1976.
According to a recent survey by the Gallup Poll, 28 percent of Americans believe the Bible is literally true, compared to 38 percent 30 years ago. The survey was conducted among 1,002 adults, aged 18 or older. Nearly half, 49 percent, said the Bible was the “inspired word of God,” while 19 percent called it an “ancient book of fables.” Only 3 percent had no opinion.
Literal belief in the Bible was highest among older Americans (36 percent), those with lowest levels of education (39 percent), Southerners (39 percent), Republicans (33 percent), and Protestants and other non-Catholic Christians (37 percent).
Should career Christians (clergy, church administrators, etc.) be concerned about this downward trend? Probably not if they are close to retirement. :-)
Most Christian Ministers should be happy and excited that people are finally getting back to understanding scriptures as what they are. The idea of the Bible as the litteral word of God came about durring the reformation, a fairly recent event in the history of the various books that are includded in the Bible.
That is, the writters of the works, and those who first read them knew they were NOT the litteral word of God, those who compiled them into various collection to form the variosu “Bibles” knew they were not, those who shared them for centuries knew they were not, and now most people once again know that.
>>Should career Christians (clergy, church administrators, etc.) be concerned about this downward trend? Probably not if they are close to retirement.
That depends which denomination one belongs to. Lots and lots of Christians treat the bible as a guide in their lives, but wouldn’t take it liteally like the fundamentalists.
Here’s the dirty little secret…. NO modern Chrstiian obeys the bible totally literally. It’s just plain impossible. Too much has changed in 2000+ years.
This is even true for the constitutional “originalists” like Scalia and Roberts claim to be. With a document that’s just 200 years old, it’s still impossible.
what is it about freedom of religion that is so unclear? all u.s. ciitzens are free to believe whatever they please.
as a bleeding heart liberal, i gladly defend the rights of my fellow citizens to embrace whatever path they chose for their spiritual life.
i am free to believe whatever i please, and i refuse to let anyone stifle another man or woman’s path to spirtiual enlightenment and inner peace.
you don’t discuss religion in the workplace because one’s spiritual beliefs are a private matter. re-read mathew chapter 6 if you need to know why.
//ken
So this means that there are people who think that women in their period should be locked down until they stop bleeding.
Also that slavery is a bad thing but not illegal, that explains the Nike sweatshops.
John writes, “AS the Editor-in-chief of this blog I do not think we take a negative stand on “Christians” in general.”
I haven’t parsed the word ‘Christian’ on your blog but in stories posted it almost always refers to evangelical/conservative/fundamentalists Christians. You seem to say that all Christians are like Pat Robertson, which to me is a negative stand on Christianity.
It’s like talking about ‘bloggers’ and only citing examples of the myspace kiddies.
#28 These posts are not about Christians or Christianity but about anti-intellectualism.
#36 … but in stories posted it almost always refers to evangelical/conservative/fundamentalists Christians.
Shawn’s comment would seem to back-up John’s assertion…
Off-topic:
I feel much less sympathy for Christians being tarred with the “Pat Robertson” brush, than I feel for Muslims & Arabs who are being tarred by the “militant/extremist/terrorist” brush…
Back on-topic:
Since the 28% who believe it is the “literal word of God” are probably not part of the 49% who believe it is the “inspired word of God” – it would seem that at least 77% of Americans claim to be Christian.
If that 77% feel that a disturbingly-large percentage of posts here are from the 19% [myself included] who feel the bible is an “ancient book of fables”, maybe you could get John to post a graph breaking-down the postings into percentages – as soon as someone comes up with a way to distinguish one man’s “anti-intellectual” posts from the other man’s “anti-Christian” ones…
7. the trend is cyclic, it will likely go back up
11. your statements are based on unfounded opinions
15. that’s the point that needed to be made, thanks
21. those words were written before the scriptures were what we know them as, think about which scriptures the author was referring to
23. important distinction, but I wonder if anyone will catch its true weight
27. I hope he does
but more importantly, its not about whether you believe the book one way or another, its about whether you Love.
Love Wins.
Shawn (22), what is exactly the distinction between taking the Bible literally and taking it seriously? It seems very subtle, and I’d like a clearer explanation of your point.
40. maybe it means stop worrying about whether the three days of creation before God created the sun are “literal” days, and start worrying about how we spend our days treating each other.
*cough* http://tinyurl.com/fltvu
37 Hey Mike.. what about the pro-intellectual/pro-Christian posters?
Christians aren’t called to mindlessly follow clergy, for the record.
1 Thes 5:21
“Test everything. Hold on to the good.”
“But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good;”
“But test and prove all things [until you can recognize] what is good; [to that] hold fast.”
“On the other hand, don’t be gullible. Check out everything, and keep only what’s good.”
(41) – valid point. Still, things like whether there were literally three days before the creation of the sun, or whether we evolved strike at the heart of the Christian faith. If there was no perfect, directly divine creation, there was no perfect original man, if there was no perfect original man, there was there no fall into sin. If there was no fall into sin, there was no need for Christ, and the Bible is just a book of morals – morals which cannot be taken seriously, because they were written by the followers of a liar and/or madman. Jesus claimed to be God – if he was not, he was either lying or crazy. The clarity of his reported arguments and teachings (which are to be “taken seriously”) pretty much refutes the madman hypothesis. It would also be hypocritical to take the moral teachings of a liar seriously, so, if the Bible is to be taken seriously at all, it must also be taken literally.
>>#28 These posts are not about Christians or Christianity but about anti-intellectualism.
Even though I am a Christian, I don’t mind poking fun at these goofballs.
However, I think the constant poking fun at these Christians without any attempt at balance does unfairly hurts us all.
(Muslims are feeling the same thing… all the imbalanced reporting really hurts the peaceful majority. )
Yes, there is an anti-intellectual wing of Christianity. But there is a HUGE large intellectual wing which America owes a big debt too.
My wife went to Loyola and got a first-class education.
And that is just one in a very long list of colleges that are either overtly Christian or were started by the church. Christians have given large amounts of their time and money — self sacrificially — to bring good education to America.
But, reading this blog, you could easily miss this reality.
And this isn’t just a historical thing. Christians and the church are still vital in education.
Take a look into the role that parochial schools are playing in the inner cities. These are not your parents’ ruler-slapping school. They’ve morphed into often the only decent option for poor minority children.
Again, I can say that by reading this blog, one would never know that. It leaves a painful misimpression.
43. no, I disagree. I think it is possible to accept creation as symbolic, and still have faith in God’s role, God’s plan, and God’s grace. Science may even prove evolution of man some day, and it doesn’t de-value faith.
point: just because you know how someone does something, does not mean someone did not do that thing.
If people would let God out of their ‘box’ they might be able to accept this, Theist and Atheist alike.
Dvorak continues to take shots at Christians…. but still has a horoscope on the front page!! Does someone have a plank in their own eye?
46: It shows he has a sense of humor. Anyway, what does one have to do with the other? Horoscopes aren’t religious.
#45 You keep mentioning god as a fact when there is no factual evidence of his existance. If the bible is not literal it is not factual. God could be a metaphor. I sense you want us all to live happily together, so do you have to invent a reason to do so? What’s wrong with goodness for goodness’s sake?
#45 “Science may even prove evolution of man some day, and it doesn’t de-value faith.”
Correct — faith means never being swayed by the facts, for it is Satan who is the sower of all doubt.
#47 “what does one have to do with the other?”
Simple, Uncle Dave. Both horoscopes and religion are for entertainment purposes only. Many church bulletins now carry this disclaimer in teeny tiny print 😉
#48 “What’s wrong with goodness for goodness’s sake?”
Good question, JimR. That’s what Santa looks for when he comes to town, and it should be good enough for anyone. I call it the “universal Santa standard.” 😉
LOL. By George I think you’ve got it Gary! The Church of Santa. The rules are simple… you better be good. I think we can find many stories about Santa to assemble in one comprehensive book, complete with eyewitnessed supernatural appearances, and actual correspondance to children signed by Santa himself. We don’t even have to be subservient to him or else be thrown in hell to burn forever. He doesn’t even care if you believe in him or not. As long as you’re good you still get gifts. I know this as a fact.
I’m with you, Jim, but let’s not make the same mistake I made the last time I tried this. One little dyslexic spelling error, and we never recovered from all the bad P.R. of printing invitations to the “Church of Satan.” It’s SANTA, dammit!
Our first and only commandment is…
Be good for goodness sake.
Now let’s find a courthouse to post it in 😉
Its interesting how quickly this story moved off of the main page.
On average, a story stays on the front page a day and a half. It’s a function of how many stories are entered after it. We don’t control that.
“Its interesting how quickly this story moved off of the main page.”–PcMonster
The story was posted on 06/11/06 at 8:01 a.m.
It scrolled off on 06/13/06 at 6:37 a.m.
The 20 most recent posts appear, newer posts replacing older ones.
Please take the time to learn how blogs work, PCMonster. This isn’t the first time that it has had to be explained to you.
http://www.dvorak.org/blog/primer/blogprimer1.htm
KB- Im sorry, I will try to do better in the future.
Thanks for the link.
God Bless
HMP. Here’s an M.O that surely works for Dvorak: antagonize MAC USERS, THEISTS esp. CHRISTIANS and CREATIONISTS to pad up the blogs ratings. Hell of a way to make a living, especially at someone else’s expense. And to make matters worse for you people, you’re actually having fun while ridiculing other people. That doesn’t say much about how dignified atheists are except that they’re a bunch of humans trying to evolve into monkeys.
The post was moved back to the top because PcMonster, who had earlier complained about the post (comment #18), today remarked (comment #52) “Its interesting how quickly this story moved off of the main page.”
If not for this, it would have stayed where it was.
Slightly off topic, but dang these new Apple commercials irritate me.
John you must post something about that..please.
~chewy
My only question is why does it take 30 years for the number of bible thumpers to go down.
Gee, Hal — if your analysis was correct, you certainly do your predictable part. Leap right in with a nice little bit of ignorance and hatred — for free.
I hadn’t realized the world of superstition was so concerned with dignity. Especially watching some of your “leaders” prancing around in action.
42 Hey Mike.. what about the pro-intellectual/pro-Christian posters?
Do we have any here? [grin]
42 Christians aren’t called to mindlessly follow clergy, for the record.
And who is included in this monolithic-sounding group of “Christians” you refer to.
I can understand members of Protestant denominations being in that catagory, since that was one of the main arguments for the Protestant split from the Catholic Church… [is it safe to cit Wiki if I’m not writing a college paper?]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant
Sola scriptura: Scripture alone.
Protestants believed that the Roman Catholic church obscured the teaching of the Bible, and undermined its authority, by regarding Tradition and Papal Authority as infallible, regardless of whether it over-ruled or added to the doctrines of Scripture.
… but I’m not familiar enough with [Eastern?] Orthodox or post-Reformation Catholic teachings to know if they would agree with your assertion that they are “not called” to follow clergy – “mindlessly” or otherwise.