How Many Americans Really Believe the Bible is the Word of God

                I heard on the radio the other day about a poll that allegedly established that 80% of Americans believed the Bible was the express word of God or was inspired by God.  This implies that 80% of Americans believe in God or a Supreme Being.  But what the poll didn’t reflect is how many of that 80% had never read the Bible.

                Of that 80%, how many true believers do you suppose routinely go to church?  I doubt that 30% of that 80% actually go to church.

                As a teenager I ran around with guys who didn’t go to church.  I guess we were on the wild side because we all learned to smoke and if we could get our hands on a beer, we drank it with relish.  But we were not dishonest.  We worked for our money.  We respected our elders and opened doors for women.  We were patriotic.  Although we were too young to fight in the Second World War, we were well aware of the sacrifices made by our fathers, uncles and older cousins.  When the Korean War came along and we turned 18 we joined up thinking it would be a great adventure.  Now days if you ask a teenager who America fought in the Second World War, not one in ten knows.  But if you ask a Jewish teenager about the holocaust, he knows.

                Nearly all of us guys had moms, grandmoms or relatives that were true believer, church going Mormons.  I remember a couple of my friends saying they believed the Book of Mormon was true, although they had never read it.  I knew they were aping some devout Mormon they respected. They even thought that they would be punished in the next life for smoking, drinking and not going to church.

                As an adolescent I was sent to primary – a middle of the week kind of Mormon Sunday School for kids.  In it I was taught that we humans were created by God in his likeness and were just a little lower than the Gods, but much greater than the rest of God’s creations.  However,  as I grew older and learned that human women gave birth to offspring in the same manner as mammals, I began to doubt the religious claims that humans occupied a special, lofty, unique place in the universe.    

                You may think me a cynic and you would probably be right because I exploit the antithetic side of religion instead of the positive right.  If the polls are correct I am among a minority.  20% of us are skeptics, agnostics, deists or atheists.  I don’t care which of that 20% you think I am.  I may be a heretic, an apostate or an infidel, but at least I’m honest. 

                How can you believe the Bible is the word of God when you’ve never read it?  Because some preacher said it was the word of God?  Because you were raised in a Christian family – tradition?  Because you don’t want to offend your grandmother?  It’s fashionable?  It’s profitable?  So you will fit in?  Because church is a safe, clean, wholesome place to raise children?  Because if you were to reveal your true feelings it would hurt your social or economic status? 

                I have read the Bible, the Book of Mormon and the other so-called scriptures attributed to Joseph Smith.  I see the Bible not as the word of God, or inspired by God, but a book about human behavior garnished with wisdom.  The ancient Hebrews fashioned a philosophy or way of life from the philosophical thinking of their pagan neighbors and forefathers, men like Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Locke, and others.  If you read their works, and I can recommend a condensed tome, Basic Teachings of the Great Philosophers, by S. E. Frost, Jr., it supports my thesis.  Joseph Smith, with the help of Sidney Rigdon, was very adept at fashioning a religion from the bits and pieces of pagan philosophy and early Christianity.

                I’m not going to quote from Frost’s book, if you don’t believe me read it and see for yourself – but read it with an open mind.  What Frost’s research tells us is that our forefathers leaned towards the supernatural and abstract.  In those days as now knowledge was power.  You may recall that for centuries it was only the priests and prophets who could read and write.  The common man was dependent upon the clerics and the philosophers for their knowledge. 

                This brings to mind the power of sophistry and demagogy, strategies still used effectively today by religious leaders and politicians.  The following definition of demagogy is taken from Wikipedia: 

…  a strategy for gaining political power by appealing to the prejudices,  emotions,  fears, vanities and expectations  of the public—typically via impassioned rhetoric  and propaganda,  and often using nationalist,  populist or religious themes.

                 One of my favorite authors, H. L. Mencken, who successfully used cynicism to make a point, defined a demagogue as "one who will preach doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots." 

                An example of demagogy is the rhetoric used by President Obama and his henchmen over raising the debt ceiling.  Republicans want to reduce spending, government and want a program that would balance the budget.  Obama does not want to cut back on spending but increase taxes, especially on the rich.  The rhetoric coming from the left suggests that it is un-American and wicked to be rich.  Obama and his sycophants further argue that unless the debt ceiling is raised there will be no social security checks, no veteran checks, no money for Medicare, etc. – a strategy designed to frighten senior citizens and the recipients of other entitlements government has imposed on us, turning liberal thinkers against Republicans.  And it works.  Threatening to cut back on services and entitlements is a strategy used by government at all levels when it wants to raise taxes.

                A pauper’s vote is just as valuable as a millionaire’s vote.  The pauper is generally less educated and therefore more vulnerable to demagogy which is a tool of Marxism and Socialism – creating contention between the elite and the commoner.  It is a tactic that is as old as Socrates.  To sway the commoner or rabble the reformers, philosophers and religious clerics inculcate upon the “powerless, oppressed, and disenfranchised”  the promise of an egalitarian, utopian brand of  justice.  These scheming architects of social “improvement” know that the lower and middle classes harbor  innate disdain for the elite or aristocrats, those in positions of power.   

                Sophistry is “fallacious reasoning,” that is, reasoning that sounds reasonable but is not.   Taxing the rich and raising the debt ceiling as a solution to our economic problems is an example of sophistry. It appeals to the 50% of Americans who vote but pay no income tax, those who it seems live for the moment.   It would appear there is no regard for the fact that it is the wealthy who provide jobs.  The more the wealthy are taxed, the less jobs they create.  The fewer workers, the less revenue from taxes.  And when the debt ceiling is raised, the less the dollar is worth resulting in more inflation.  The sophist’s future is forever at arm’s length, something to reach for.  All that matters is the moment, the present, a form of procrastination.  Let the next generation worry about it.

                So if I am right, what does the poll, 80% of Americans believe the Bible is the word of God or was inspired by God, tell us.  It indicates that a huge amount of Americans base their world view or beliefs upon emotional or spiritual (deceptive) reasoning rather than reality.  Even when the facts clearly contradict fallacious thinking, “cognitive dissonance” often kicks in causing the victims of unsound logic to become more determined to believe in demigods, utopian mirages and supernatural phenomenon.  It is a defense mechanism of the mind. 

                Does this imply it is harmful to believe in the Bible or that belief in the Bible is a sign of a dysfunctional mind?  Not at all – although many religious extremists are deadly dangerous.  On the reverse side, are non believer’s anarchists, hedonists and generally heathenish, evil people?  Of course not.   But it makes for some interesting conversation.