Comments about ‘Poll: Americans believe the Bible’

I find this interesting. Many people believe in the Bible, but refuse to obey the commandments and the teachings and wisdom therein. Sexual immorally is rampant. Either the Bible is true, or it is not. It's like making a cake and leaving out certain ingredients. Your cake will certainly be a failure. God will not accept fence sitters. Nevertheless, I will love my neighbor. It is a commandment from the Bible.

They claim to believe it, but really very few bother to read it or know much about what it says. A favorite theme is taking scriptures out of context and not considering the whole issue. But I'm glad we have it; it's fascinating accounts hold me spell-bound as I try to understansd how it should apply to me.

Thanks to those through the centuries that have preserved it.

@Layra Ann
you probably would find it far less interesting once you notice that only 30% of the country shares what appears from your post to be a literal interception of the bible.

Organized religion has the power to promote the Bible as truth and many people never question it. Organized religion often promotes the moral or inspirational parts of the Bible while ignoring....that according to the Bible, God is directly responsible for many mass-murders, rapes, pillage, plunder, slavery, child abuse and killing.

The law that Atheism grows in proportion to the growth of knowledge and freedom without having to promote itself like organized religions is historical. The law of history that Atheism grows with the growth of knowledge, and that we have now a marvelous machinery for transmitting our knowledge to all will eventually change these poll results. But every part of this machinery....the school, the public library, the press, the bookstore, the lecture-room, the radio....can be used just as effectively for the dissemination of untruth as of truth, and the Churches, with their enormous wealth and power, have gained a very pernicious degree of control over the machinery.

Atheism however has grown in the last 10 years a hundred times more rapidly than any religion ever grew. The growth has been checked only by fraudulent misrepresentations and savage persecution....yet it continues to grow!

@ Joggle

God is not responsible for any of that. Men are. Truly sad.

2 Nephi 9:28

"O that cunning plan of the evil one! O the vainness, and the frailties, and the foolishness of men! When they are learned they think they are wise, and they hearken not unto the counsel of God, for they set it aside, supposing they know of themselves, wherefore, their wisdom is foolishness and it profiteth them not. And they shall perish."

The real question is, why soo many people are able to blindly follow barack, shower him with a nobel peace prize that he clearly didn't deserve or earned. Even to this point, there are "true believers" and can't get over the spell he has cast on them.

I have an easier time believing all of the events in the Bible compared to believing barack is the "chosen one" to save this country and economy. Talk about a false prophet. Barack has caused the deaths of millions around this world, started 4 wars, air raids villages with women and children, invades nations for oil, deflates the value of the dollar, increases socialism, believes people should depend on him for everything....what kind of leaders do that? Looking through history Adolf Hitler, Stalin, Cuba's leaders, North Korea, Soviet Russia, most European countries....think of the success of those nations.

That's what happens when you give up freedom and your freedom to provide and depend on yourself. Do you really believe all leaders have your personal best interest in mind? These are power hungry individuals that want a "legacy" and be immortalized in history. They'll tell you what you want to hear.

@George: Instead of picking on Laura Ann, maybe you could put together a list for us of all the things that are NOT to be taken literally. And how are we supposed to know what to take literally and what not to?

I'd love to see the spiritual wisdom of our ever present resident poster from the enlightened state of New York.

I'm reminded of a couple scriptures though that I have found to be true.

John 7:17 If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.

See the word "know" not believe or faith in there. They will know.

Luke 16:13 No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

Isaiah: 55:9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.

Most Christians would probably be surprised to know that a Pagan, (at the time, he supposedly converted later) the Roman ruler Constantine, was responsible for the Canonization of what is now known as the Bible. Sure it wasn't him personally who canonized it, but he did bring together all of the various sects and off-shoots and pretty much forced them to sit down and decide which books would stay, which would go. I've read the new testament many times, and I find it a bit discombobulated and contradictory at times. Of course I learned later why that probably is. It's really too bad that much of what was written at the time, and writings long before the new testament was canonized, were later destroyed by Monks who viewed the writings as blasphemous. Had those writings been preserved, I think the Christian world view might be a bit different today, even with new-Evangelicalism that appears to distance itself from traditional Christianity, all while those who follow it accuse others(Mormons, et al) of being deceived. Isn't religion fun!

Every single word in the Bible requires interpretation. Those who talk about its plain meaning are kidding themselves. Even the simplest, plainest verse needs interpretation: "Jesus wept." Did he weep for joy? sadness? irritation? anger? was there something in his eye? Until you can explain even something that simple, you have no standing to authoritatively interpret the Bible.

@charles
Its simple I do not think any part of the bible should be taken literal. If you and Anna want to be black and white then by all means but her observation is based on a basic misrepresentation of the article which clearly states that only 30% of the population believe as Laura does that the bible should be read as literal.

Re: Joggle | 11:09 a.m. July 13, 2011

"The law that Atheism grows in proportion to the growth of knowledge and freedom without having to promote itself like organized religions" is an opinion and not a law of physics. There was a time when the most learned minds on earth thought it was flat and if you got too close to the edge you'd fall off.

Atheists are like fleas on an elephant's tail. They view the world from their vantage point and make pronouncements based on their limited view of it.

@charles
With regards to your scriptural references again I would say that I take those stories as just that metaphorical stories meant to relate an idea by the writer not as something literal. When you read Grimms fairy tales do you read it as a wolf literally dressed up as a grandma to eat a child or do you read it as a metaphor? I think the writings in the bible are an interesting study in what was happening at the time of their writing and that they reflect the thoughts of the writer on their world through insights and stories that may or may not have reflected actual events of the time in someway. Whether those writings continue to speak to modern concerns is something that each individual must decide for themselves. I realize you really had no interest in knowing so and where just trying to be rude but those are my thoughts on the subject for those that care to consider a different point of view.

Poll: Americans will believe anything if enough people say it's true.

How many people still think Obama wasn't born in the US?

Re: Pagen | 2:11 p.m. July 13, 2011
"Gays greatest threat to America, Buttars says' - By Aaron Falk - DSnews - 02/19/09"

Trying to prove your facts or make a point based on someone else's opinions is like listening to advice from a flea sitting an elephant's tail. I don't believe half of what I read in a newspaper or hear from the TV news anchor.

Trying to pontificate and prove a point based on someone else's opinion makes about as much sense as trying to build a house on a block of ice.

Polls are just a bunch of hogwash. 5 out of every 4 people know that.

If some of the things that are written in the Bible (Noah and the great flood, donkeys talking,Sodom and Gomorrah,etc) were in the BofM, nobody would believe it!

People still believe in God; it's organized religion that they are rejecting more.

@Joggle
"Atheism however has grown in the last 10 years a hundred times more rapidly than any religion ever grew."

That's not even true.

The ARIS survey in 2008 found a 204% increase in atheists from 1990-2008. Impressive, but... Buddhism has increased 194%, evangelical/born-again increased 294%, and the LDS church has grown 27%.

Rifleman: Trying to prove your facts or make a point based on someone else's opinions is like listening to advice from a flea sitting an elephant's tail.

...and yet everything in the bible was written or interpreted by different men, whom you base your "Facts" on.