Damn!, politics and religion on one website. Talk about potential danger. I’ve seen those statistics too Steve but one has to wonder how accurate the responses are because one has to take into consideration how the question is phrased. If the question is ‘Do you believe in the literal truth of the bible and believe it is the inerrant word of God” and 2/3rds responded yes, then what you have said would be true. I wonder if that is how the question was phrased. Never the less, we do indeed have many Christian (and other) literalists in the US.

There is also the sticky issue of truth in a response. Religion can be fraught with superstition and when a person is asked a religious question and gives response, I wonder how much truth is there vs. telling the questioner what he/she thinks he/she should say. The responder could have doubts about a belief or issue but could answer to the affirmative to avoid the old lightning bolt from heaven striking him asunder if he/she should give a response questioning the existence of God. Or a response that would be open to doubt. In religion, separating superstition from spirituality and dogma is a very convoluted path.

And even though the US is indeed a very religious, mostly Christian country, I still think the people in the ME have a more imbedded, entwined, and extreme interpretation of it than the people in the US. That’s just a gut feeling and I have no way to prove what I just said. But, several years back, I read this article in The Atlantic that really opened my eyes to the thinking in the ME, Egypt in this case. It was about the crash of Egypt Air 990 off of New York. I will provide the link below but one cannot read the whole article unless one is a subscriber to The Atlantic. It is definitely worth reading if you can seek it out. Very, very intriguing and interesting.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200111/langewiesche

Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.