Belief and Blame

[Onlooker]

<http://abcnews.go.com/sections/primetime/US/views_of_bible_poll_040216.html>

Most Americans believe some of the best-known Bible stories are literally true — but at the same time a vast majority rejects the Biblical suggestion that Jews bear collective responsibility for the death of Jesus.

Six in 10 in this ABCNEWS Primetime poll say the Biblical accounts of Moses parting the Red Sea, God creating the world in six days and Noah and the flood happened that way, word for word. Evangelical Protestants are even more apt to hold this view; about nine in 10 of them take these accounts literally.
...

Are Jews Today Responsible for the Death of Jesus?
.......YES.....NO
All....8%......80%

...

Bible Stories Are "Literally True"
.............................Red Sea.....Creation.....Noah
All..........................64%.........61%..........60%
Catholics....................50..........51...........44
Protestants..................79..........75...........73
Evangelical Protestants......91..........87...........87
Non-Evangelical Protestants..59..........55...........50
No Religion..................32..........24...........29

**************

While I find it plausible that very few Americans blame the Jews for killing Jesus, is it really true that so many Americans believe in Noah's Ark and Moses parting the Red Sea? Has our education system failed so completely to give people a respect for science and an understanding of how Christian myths contradict the myths of at least 60% of the world? I find these poll results bizarre. Next thing you know Americans are going to start believing in angels! ;)

[BiggJawn]

1. Ever read Sagan's "The Demon-Haunted World"?

The answers are right there.
I gave it to my daughter to read when she was 16. I think that was probably the best thing I ever did as a parent.

[mopinko]

5. one of the best books

i have ever read. my copy is very worn due to repeated lending.

[tom_paine]

21. Carl Sagan was one of my personal heroes

"The Demon-Haunted World" represents what I think amounts to a deathbed revelation that his optimistic belief in humanity's ascendancy was, shall we say, a bit misplaced given historical reality.

In my own way I'm glad Sagan didn't live to see his prophecies of that book fufilled in spades, and his warnings about how ignorant, misinformed people become easy prey for Totalitarianism, even more true than he laid out.

I miss him terribly, and I think humanity misses his services also, but I am glad he didn't live to see Imperial Amerika ground under the heels of the Busheviks.

[Dhalgren]

2. Let me say up-front that i am not a Christian.

But I have studied the Bible a great deal and according to the New Testament, the Jews are responsible for Jesus' death. Not "all Jews", but those who were present and in power at the time - and all of those in the "crowd" who called for jesus' execution. Now, I fully accept the more reasonable and historically founded idea that this "blaming the Jews" by the writers of the New Testament was done for political reasons and is not, in fact, true. But, then I don't hold the Bible to be literally true anywhere within its covers. But, if you do hold that the Bible is "fact" and the "unalterable word of God (Yahweh, actually)" then how can you not say that the Jews killed Jesus?

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. Most bizarre of all are the 'no religion' figures

24% of them still believe in a 6 day creation! I'm not even sure the Pope believes that is more than a metaphor. He certainly believes in evolution.

This is powerful evidence for Richard Dawkins' 'religion as meme' theory - that it perpetuates itself as an idea despite the evidence of the real world.

[AndyTiedye]

4. What Percentage Are Afraid to Say NO When they Don't Know Who is Calling?

It could be the Ashcroft looking for "terrorists".
It could just be the Fundies looking for unbelievers to protheletize at.

It could be that the biblethumpers have really taken over :scared:.

There is something else rather scarey about this survey:

All..........................
Catholics....................
Protestants..................
Evangelical Protestants......
Non-Evangelical Protestants..
No Religion..................

Note the range of categories. You are either Catholic,
some kind of Protestant, or have no religion!

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

8. yeah, we would not want Jews or Muslims to answer these

questions.... oh wait, they helped write the Bible, didn't they?

My bad.

/sarcasm

[reprobate]

6. Has our education system failed so completely

Yes, it certainly has. But it's not just the education system. Evangelism is agressive and angry. Science is not. Like the Goebbles system, the side with the loadest lies is the one that gets believed.

Psychologicly, to deny their myths is to attack their entire self worth, since it is so unbreakably entwined with perfection due to someone else taking responsibility. Rather like the civil war practice of hiring someone else to fight in the place of the wealthy.

An interesting view of why most europeans reject evangelism why americans embrace it, is that the history of europe is replete with governments controlled by religion. They lived thru it so they know the pain and deaths involved when religion takes over. Americans haven't experienced the pain, so we are apparently doomed to repeat their mistakes.

[gimme a break]

18. Actually some Russian scientist

said the parting of the Red Sea was possible. I'll have to search for the story. It's been a while since I read it so it may take a while.

But if there was a strong enough wind for long enough, the entire Jewish nation could have made the crossing.

And some Christian archaeologists say they've found chariot wheels and have pictures.

http://www.ncbuy.com/news/2004-01-22/1008761.html

<ST. PETERSBURG, Russia -- Maybe Moses' parting of the Red Sea wasn't a miracle after all: A Russian mathematician has come up with a scientific explanation for the well-known biblical story. Naum Wolzinger says there's a reef at the Gulf of Suez near the spot of the Exodus that could make it possible to cross on foot if the tide and wind conditions were just so. But if the wind died down, the water would come flooding back over the reef, as it did to the Egyptians in Moses' story.>

This isn't the same article I read. Couldn't find it. But here's the jist of it.

And here's the link to the pictures of the chariot wheels.

http://www.wyattarchaeology.com/red_sea.htm

However the archaeologists don't think the crossing was in the same place as the mathematician does.

[KCDem]

22. what I heard was that

before the canal was created, there had been an area with a sandbar-like thing that went all the way across. It's possible that the sea was low for awhile, allowing people to walk across that area. I hadn't heard anything about chariot wheels, however.

[newyawker99]

24. Hi gimme a break!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[iam]

7. Apples and Oranges

If you don't believe in the tenets of religion you burn in hell forever. If you don't believe in the tenets of Science you're simply ignorant. Now you make a choice, and if you're wrong, either burn in hell forever or be ignorant. I'm surprised only 6 in ten say they believe some of the more ridiculous religious stories. Simple.

[A J]

9. I don't believe the creation happened in six days...

but i still think i am going to heaven. If God really did create the world in six days, then why would he try to fool us with all this contradictory scientific evidence?

I think it is a metaphor, and what I find most interesting is that while the length of time is wrong, the order of events may be right.

[DoYouEverWonder]

11. According to the gnostic christians

that all these stories were meant to be were metaphors. They were not meant to be taken literally. They were just a simple way to explain very complex concepts to the masses. No wonder they tried to kill off all the gnostics because they were 'heretics'?

[truthspeaker]

15. the order of events isn't right either

Genesis has God create the earth first, and then the sun and moon. Also I think it gets the plants-sea creatures-land animals order wrong. Of course, it wasn't meant as a science book to begin with.

[A J]

19. It isn't exactly right....

But as a history of the earth it works pretty well.

It gets the humans at the end part right. And how life on the planet became more and more advanced. But it is off on the whole astronomy thing.

Still, it was a pretty inspired piece of writing by Moses, since he wasn't actually there to witness it.

[redqueen]

20. Excuse me if I'm wrong, but

didn't it say the first thing He created was light?

[A J]

23. The first thing is the heavens and the earth....

Then came the light....

But it says light, not sun.

[AtTheEndOfTheDay]

10. These Bible believing dimwits

are the same folks that account for Republicanism and this phony war. The bell curve pretty much dictates 50% of everybody will be wrong on probably everything, or stupid, or greedy or whatever quality you pinpoint. I wish the tribulation or whatever it is would hurry up and haul these fools off to peachy ville and leave the rest here to run the planet with reason as our creed

[warrior1]

12. Interesting reading

http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/

Sorry second link not linkable from here.

Look for: False Testament: Archaeology Refutes the Bible's Claim to History. (Criticism).



Author: Daniel Lazare

[Onlooker]

14. Thanks!

What a great site that is! :)

[kitkatrose]

13. What I don't get is the cherry picking.

How do you decide which part of the Bible is to be taken verbatim and which parts are metaphor, or whatever? If someone parts are true and parts are not, then why do they get pissed when you suggest that it's all false? That's just as plausible.

[A J]

17. Also,

How many times in the bible is there an explicit reference against being gay? (none, really) compared to how many references for giving to helping the poor and downtrodden (the whole dang book). Yet republican religious nuts continue their "moral" gay bashing while ignoring the single most important and emphasized lesson in the Bible.

It drives me nuts. Democrats can take any republican to school when they claim "the moral high ground."

[fjc]

16. Ya gotta wonder, who are those people in the lower %?

And even more than that, what a measure of where we are as a culture when such large percentages of people hold literal beliefs about the Bible stories. But, I recall the very first graduate level class I took in Biblical exegesis. I don't think we were an hour into the first lecture when some of the students, visibly upset, raised their hands to ask "where is Jesus in all this?"

[msmcghee]

25. Stupid atheist question.

IF God sent Jesus, his only begotten son to earth, to die for our sins and wash them away in his blood,

. . and if the Jews really are responsible for his death,

. . then why are not Christians totally thankful and beholden to the Jews for being God's instrument for their salvation?

[msmcghee]

26. Yes, my question is stupid too ;-) n/t