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Nearly 1 in 3 Believe Bible is Literal Word of God »
Posted by: Aidenag 2 years, 5 months agoAbout one-third of the American adult population believes the Bible is the actual word of God and is to be taken literally word for word, a new Gallup poll reveals. This percentage is only slightly lower than several decades ago.
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Aidenag
Photographer by day, news junkie by night. My main areas of interest are politics and the environment.
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Comments: 102
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JohnQPublicComment has been removed: User banned.
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sonofjohn
May 26, 2007, 2:53 p.m.I do. But the last time I put a tooth under my pillow the tooth fairy left a note saying that because of tax breaks, my money and tooth was given to the rich kid across town because his father, a very important man, lobbied for it.
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Mazrix
May 26, 2007, 2:33 a.m.So, 1/3 of American adults want to sacrifice animals, have slaves, oppress women, kill homosexuals, nonbelievers, people who work on the sabbath, women who lose their virginity before marriage, and rebellious teenagers... And there's also the 6000 years ago thingy...
Yeah, good job people! You are believing in the most ridiculous, racist, sexist, and nazists (is that a word?) book ever written by mankind...
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cantfoolme
May 26, 2007, 4:41 a.m.Was that a misprint in the article? Was the word "children" replaced by "adults" in error? I didn't think that 1 in 3 Americans were even christians let alone literal believers of the bible. It also says to me that 1 in 3 of the greatest scientific nation on earth don't believe in evolution. I'm off to Europe!
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misanoel
May 26, 2007, 10:15 a.m.This must be the same "1 in 3" that would support the President even if he molested infants.
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humanpurpose
May 26, 2007, 11:53 a.m.This is the 1/3 of the public that elected and then re-elected President Bush. It is also the public that, as a result, got us into war in Iraq and has turned huge masses of young Muslim men against us and into terrorism. It is also the public that is ready to support Bush's next war, the one on Iran.
Why has it gotten so politically powerful? Because our secular ideals are in decline. Our society is not working well any more.
charles, http://humanpurpose.simplenet.com
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Dionys
May 26, 2007, 12:07 p.m.Actually, the last world-wide survey done had the US at around 50%. Literalist interpretations of the Bible are ridiculous at best. There are far too many contradictions between the chapters and even within the chapters for any well-educated person to take the Bible literally.
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progressive-bum
May 26, 2007, 12:10 p.m.This means that 1/3 of believers have to stone their disobedient children to death. Let's hold their feet to the fire and expose the hateful rhetoric and discrepancies in the Bible.
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Hobe
May 26, 2007, 12:25 p.m.'Nearly 1 in 3 Believe Bible is Literal Word of God'
Is it Fair to say that if mankind lived by the Simple Ten Commandments, the entire World would be a Better place for All to live???
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pjshappy2
May 26, 2007, 1:37 p.m.The bible IS the literal word of God. The bible was given to us for reading and interpretation. If you follow Jesus' last 2 commands, you will have observed the whole 10 in the old testament. 1)Love the Lord your God with all you have,(paraphrased) and 2) Love your neighbor as yourself.
The world sure would be a better place if we all just got along and were nice to each other! That is all He is asking, and to put Him first. You don't have to be perfect, no one is and noone but Jesus will ever be. You don't even have to be exceptional! Just be nice and do what is right and good and pleasant and loving and kind. That seems to be very difficult for a lot of people in this world today. Try your best and you will see things in a different light.
God Bless!
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TOtheMOON
May 26, 2007, 2:08 p.m.I believe this: that a lot of people believe what "their leader" tells them what the bible claims to say and believes "their leader" without question. They are followers and don't look for the answers themselves for fear of being ridiculed by the other believers and "their leader" if it is different from what they are being told by "their leader".
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Lazloe
May 26, 2007, 2:43 p.m.Being that Egypt was the greatest record keeping country of all time at that time, why is there no record within the Egyption archives that mentions Moses or plagues that are mentioned in the Bible? There is also no Egyption records of the exodus or the parting of the Red Sea.
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sonofjohn
May 26, 2007, 3:03 p.m.There is a museum in Kentucky, started by an immigrant from Australia, that promotes creationism. It is a multi-million dollar facility that rivals main stream museums with state-of-the-art exhibits. They expect it to become a big success much like the christian resort built by Jim Baker before his demise. This museum includes the presence of dinosaurs and humans in the same exhibit. The dumbing down of America continues.
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cushi
May 26, 2007, 3:07 p.m.It is highly evident that many posters here have not read or studied the Bible, and have no understanding of it! Many are just repeating portions of scripture out of context and jumping to conclusions based on their uninformed or limited knowledge. It would take years to enlighten many of you, and before that could happen, you'd have to have open minds and realize that we are dealing not with the natural but with the supernatural and spiritual. The key is revelation from the Holy Spirit. Until one is willing to open one's self up to it, no understanding is possible.
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quackpot
May 26, 2007, 3:14 p.m.A literal belief in the Bible seems to be a requirement for a career position in the Justice Department.... all except the part about do unto others....
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ballbuster2
May 26, 2007, 3:21 p.m.it appears to me, by what i have just read here, the u.s. has joined iran as part of the axis of evil that president bush has spoken of.
if booz, sex, drugs, GREED is the most important thing to the AMERICAN CULTURE and there is no place for faith in god the nation is already gone and it's citizen's are already DEAD. may the good lord have mercy on all of our soul's!!
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wildman6557
May 26, 2007, 3:49 p.m.When a person says that they believe in the Bible literally, they are really saying two things: One is that the Bible as originally written is the inerrant word of God. I believe that. However, they are also saying a second thing which I emphatically DO NOT believe: That their interpretation of the Bible is also inerrant. All of history stands against this being true. Even the Pharisees in Jesus' time got their interpretation wrong and they were a whole lot more knowledgeable about the Hebrew scripture than ANY fundamentalist around today (or anyone!).
Keep in mind that there are no literal translations of any written word. If it were possible to translate literally then machines could translate language which they can not. (Yes I know there are translation programs on the web but none work very well).
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cantfoolme
May 26, 2007, 4:01 p.m.I think you have missed the point. No one is disputing that the majority of Americans are Christian. The issue is that 1 in 3 take the bible literally. That is the salient and rather distressing point. By the way are those figures really representitive, as Jews must surely score more than 1 considering the influence they have in the running of the country? Perhaps the survey was done as people were leaving one of Haggard's hysterical rantings.
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srhm0123
May 26, 2007, 4:27 p.m.As far as the many translations of the Bible or it not coming originally from the English language, that is what the Greek and Hebrew dictionaries are for.
Not ALL believers are so because their parents told them so or mindlessly follow some church or political organization.
Lumping ALL together that way is as ignorant as racism.
What about the ones that grew up believing or in an agnostic/ atheistic household ?
Imagine their shock/ surprise/ amazement to discover that there WAS something, after all.
Hey...It ain't over till it's over.
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hsamwilliams
May 26, 2007, 5:13 p.m.Well because I beleive in the bible means I have not read it, want to do slavery, beat up women, only follow my leader and uneducated.
Let me see I have an Associats in Sociology and a B.A. in History. I have read the 12 different Bible translations and have read and studied at least something about every major relgion in the world. I was not raised a Christians and grew up beleive the Bible was a myth. What is a myth here is every one of the false staments made by people who choose to not really understand Christians but choose to puff themselve up and make them selves better then others.
Let me challenge some of you to real dialogue. There is a web site called Beleifnet. On there is a Christian dialogue site I visit. Choose a discussion and join it. Since you are so much more brillians than us poor unenlighted people. You should be able to show us how illeterte we were.
By the way. The Torah refers to the first five books of Moses. The story of Ballim is in Numbers 22.
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AZSocks
May 26, 2007, 5:32 p.m.I'm a Christian, and even I don't believe the bible to be a literal work. It has too many contradictions to be that. It was written by men (and a woman) who were just as flawed and human as we are today.
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sirat
May 26, 2007, 5:36 p.m.One in three is not that great. If you want the word of God, and are not SQUEEMISH--read the Qu'ran.
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