Cindy, I'm sure lots of people actively interpret the Bible and think about context and metaphors and so on. I have trouble with the idea that those people are incapable of doing the same thing to interpret a survey question.
Have you ever taken a survey and found you picked the answer that is closest to right-for-you, because is exactly right-for-you isn't there? I could certainly see myself picking "literally true" in a survey, if there wasn't another description that better fit my beliefs, and yet I'm far from a biblical literalist on a lot of issues (although I am literalist on others).
I could certainly see myself picking "literally true" in a survey
If I'm reading Strega correctly, the survey questions were phrased, "Do you believe this is literally true? Yes or no?" In your case, where you don't believe some events are
literally
true in the strictest sense but have your own interpretation as to their literalness, wouldn't "No" be the soundest answer? I think what Strega is getting at is that the questions were very specific; even when questioned about specific events like the time for creation of the earth and the age of the planet, respondents still claimed they believed in the literal truth.
I found this report, which does have a wider variety of choices in the Gallup poll:
Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process 38%
Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process 13%
God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so 45%
Different or no opinion 4%
The Bible is the actual word of God and is to be taken literally, word for word 34%
The Bible is the inspired word of God but not everything in it should be taken literally 48%
The Bible is an ancient book of fables, legends, history, and moral precepts recorded by man 15%
No Opinion 3%
The Bible is the inspired word of God but not everything in it should be taken literally 48%
The Bible is an ancient book of fables, legends, history, and moral precepts recorded by man 15%
Huh. I would have wanted an option in between those two (although I suppose that's splitting hairs about the definition of "inspired word").
ETA: No, I don't think it is splitting hairs. My understanding of the way I was raised is definitely in between those two and not appropriately represented by either one. Not that I'm blaming anyone here. Just interesting.
I really don't want to get dressed and leave the house again, but I must.
Also, I need a dress to wear to a wedding Saturday, and everything I have looks like crap. It's either too big or too small.
Does your family do anything to mark the day? My mother, my aunt and I used to go shopping and out to lunch on the anniversary of my grandmother's death. We haven't done it in a few years, though. It got harder, once I had the children, and the anniversary is ten days before Christmas, which makes it doubly tough. We don't really mark my father's death, though. My grandmother would have had her 100th birthday this month, so we're having a family reunion on her birthday.
Since it was the 10th year, we went to Mass. I find that we tend to do things now on the "bigger" anniversaries of events.
Going to mass (not at my regular church) lead to an odd moment that ended up making me smile. Since it was a weekday service the priest invited the attendees to say their invocations out loud. An older man said that since we are in The End Times, he prayed for the Jews to convert to Catholicism.
Which started me thinking First, we’re in “The End Times”? I know some protestant sects believe that, but we Catholics do too? Sheesh. Are we going to be Raptured too? Because I was thinking that could be tough if it happens while I’m driving.
Second, that was a rather exclusive prayer -- just the Jews? We don’t want the Buddhists, the Hindus, the Muslims, the Wicca, etc? (It was sort of like the scene in “Blazing Saddles” in which the townspeople were discussing whether to allow the railroad workers to join them – ”We’ll take the N------ and the Ch----, but we don’t want the Irish.”) So, no matter how old we are (the Catholic Church is 2000+), I guess we still want our parents’ approval. My mother would have appreciated that. Which made me smile.
Well, the Jews are already halfway there, see? The Buddhists are way over there, and the Moslems have sprinted way ahead.
Does proselytisation have a low-hanging fruit concept?
Could be. It would explain the Jehovah Witnesses going door-to-door. If you're opening your door to two well-dressed folks in business attire, I guess you deserve to be proselytized.
The rest of your day didn't exist to me. So.
Summation by juror 034.
The good: I got to read
Assassination Vacation
in one fell swoop. Finished 7 crosswords. Ate Ranier cherries. Didn't have to watch
Monster in Law
or
Hitched.
There was adequate a/c. I wasn't allergic to anything in the quiet assembly room.
The bad or dubious: Half my head threatened to explode in the main assembly room (but, see above.) I sat on my ass ALL DAY LONG and it hurts because jurybox chairs suck and are 100 million years old. And, duh, I got to jury a trial. Which isn't bad really, just.... Oh, and I spend all of it thinking I was
bleeding all over the place, but I wasn't but sheesh.
Conclusions: PEOPLE ARE REALLY STUPID AND A POX ON ALL OF THEM.
Which is to say, we found the defendent not guilty, and there is probably a 95% chance there's gonna be a girlfight down on Hamburg Street tonight!
No one got called untill 3:30. At which point, thankfully, I'd just finished my book. And they select people by their juror #s. So I knew that unless the case involved something closely related to my person, I was probably going to be on a jury. I was right. I got to sit in painful seat #4.
Anyway, it was basically two women neighbors and their gangs (yes, they used that term) trying to say the defendent pulled the first punch. No one's stories really matched up. The only one remotely credible was one who testified for the defense who was friends with both. I think there were childhood vendettas, defendent getting victim's fiance arrested (um, never heard the why of that,) mediation...and it seems ...oh hell. None of it makes sense unless you decide they were all just stupid. Reasonable doubt, um yeah. About their senses especially. We all walked into the jury room at 6, looked around, started to snort (sober justice) and it was pretty clear we had a verdict. And then they had us wait another 20 minutes so we all talked about omg!stupid and how there's going to be a rumble tonight. And how we really wondered why anyone would even take this to court! It was all inconsistent she said-she saids.
POX ON ALL OF THEM FOR MAKING ME SIT IN THAT STUPID CHAIR.
All in all, interesting, but omg people!
Oh, another bad: parking cost more than the stipend because I couldn't find the special garage in traffic this morning.
And note to all prosecutors: When one of YOUR witnesses is on the stand testifying, seeing you mouth
if she's telling the truth
about YOUR witness when she's said something that obviously is news to you? Probably not a good idea.
