According to a Newsweek poll, 79% of Americans believe that Jesus was birthed by a virgin mother. Furthermore, 67% believe the entire Christmas story is true, including the angels proclaiming his birth to the shepherds, the guiding Star of Bethlehem, and the visit of the wise men. Now here’s where it gets interesting – 82% believe that he was God or the Son of God. So at least 3% of the people polled believe that though God walked this Earth in human form, that he wasn’t born of a virgin – who do these people think fathered Jesus?
55% of the people polled believe the Bible is literally true, while 52% of the people polled believe that Jesus will come back. Are at least 3% of these people unaware that Jesus says in the Bible that he’s coming back to this Earth, and why can’t they accept a small miracle compared to the larger miracle of God walking this Earth?
And as for these other people, just what is it about the Bible that is so hard to swallow? They apparently believe that God sent himself or his Son to this planet in human form, yet is incapable of ensuring that His instructions for how we should live our lives are recorded accurately enough that they can be taken literally? Who do these people believe that Jesus is, and what strange limitations have they put on God? 62% of people polled believe we should teach creation science in schools, while only 55% of the people believe the Bible is literally true. Who are the 7+% of people who don’t believe the Bible should be taken literally, but believe we should teach creation in schools? If you can believe the creation story literally, what other part of the Bible is not to be believed, what is impossible for a God that can create the universe?
Are you one of those people whose belief in the virgin birth is inconsistent with your other beliefs? If you believe Jesus was born by a miracle, as God walking this earth, doesn’t logic suggest that your life should be lived in a way consistent with what He said? (If you think it’s all false, I think you’re wrong, but at least that’s a logically consistent viewpoint.)
Rob's Blog - Technology, Atlanta, Startups and Stuff 
How was your trip to China?
I keep holding back on the full deal about China until I can get my pics posted on the web (looking at loading Gallery onto my server). The short of it is that I gained a wealth of knowledge. We didn’t visit Beijing, so we didn’t touch on a lot of the history, but I learned a wealth of information about the culture and particularly the business world over there. I spent a great deal of time with a renowned Chinese economist, and some time at CBT 100, a conference of the top 100 public companies in China. The church dedication was also an amazing experience – it is amazing how inexpensively a building can be built to serve a community, and how eagerly the community embraced it.
Heh. Lovely post. I’m amazed at religous people. I really am.
Human behavior by definition is logically inconsistent.
The bible itself contains internal logical inconsistencies. It is logically impossible to believe in all of the bible.
” It is logically impossible to believe in all of the bible”
Either you can believe it all – or you can believe none of it.
BTW, it only contains what you believe to be inconsistancies. If you study it contextually, grammatically and historically you will come to a different conclusion. I’m betting that you’ve not studied it all.
Thanks, Mark – it is often remarkable how convinced many people become of the Bible’s truth as they subject it to intense scrutiny. The most inane thing to believe about the Bible is that some of it is true. Which parts do you believe, and how do you know your “true” parts are correct, particularly if someone else disagrees? It is incredible to think that someone would choose to base their life on just the parts of the Bible they choose to believe. That’s little more than a pretense of religion, disguising little more than moral relativism.
Logical Inconsistency in America:
I think you hit the nail on the head with the subject Bob. Truth and logic of beliefs or literature or any type of concept depends on the interpreter and in the case you have given is the American public.
We all have necessities and limitations, and I believe that the majority of our necessities are born from or limitations. Our beliefs are neither logical or consistent as they are only a reflection of our needs, the need to believe in good and bad, which is which and when is that true; or when is that true for “us”.
The need to believe in a life after death and an all Powerful however is a consistent need and is the base of nearly all beliefs, religions, sects etc. Apart from being consistent it is also logical, as marketing goes you wouldn’t get far with a religion that doesn’t claim to hold the key to life after death and that at the top of the “their” hierarchy is the “The Almighty”.
Rob, I believe living by a book, in this case the Bible, is a lot easier than having to live by your own decisions and by your own choices. To decide for oneself based on ones own principles is not easy as it’s active, much easier to live passively and say, “Well, that’s what it says in the Bible”, or an eye for an eye etc. Personally I prefer the active way to life and I feel I am lucky to be able to live that way as I am able to decide for myself, but others would argue the differ.
It’s a funny old world.
“They apparently believe that God sent himself or his Son to this planet in human form, yet is incapable of ensuring that His instructions for how we should live our lives are recorded accurately enough that they can be taken literally?”
So tell me, who decides which version of the Bible is “right” then? Versions of the Bible in the past, the rather distant past, have several contradictions with current versions, which of course have been “corrected.” All of the versions we are familiar with today of course are infallible because historians have looked over them and lots and lots of research has been done–but who does that research? It’s not God; God has no need for research. God has certainly allowed people in the past to write some crazy things in their “Bibles,” showing that God does not have a universal ban on false writings about God. Since false writings have occurred and there have been discrepancies among the versions of God’s Word over time and historians and researchers are fallible, being humans, the question of whether the bible is “right” or not becomes question of interpretation of no longer the Bible but God Himself. If you think that God would use humans to cleanse the impurities out of the Bible over time, what makes you sure that he’s done? If you think that all of the versions are right even with their contradictions, I like you (but perhaps Zen would be a better religion for you). The real point that is behind all of this is that religion is about faith, not logic. It?s not a puzzle; you can?t put the pieces together. All you can do is look back and see how God fit them together. Case in point: Perl. You can?t understand someone else?s perl (else you are a better man than I), but it?s running and you can watch if you want to.