I wonder if they are actually that ignorant of if they simply supply the answer that justifies their political beliefs.

There doesn't seem to be much logical thinking going on by almost half the American adult population? 41% thought that either Islam or Christianity was an older religion than Judaism, 6% didn't know? and presumably most of the people who made up the respondents were Christians with a strong faith in the Bible...beats me?

I wonder if they are actually that ignorant of if they simply supply the answer that justifies their political beliefs.

The same could be asked of the disgustingly high numbers of people that believe 9/11 was an inside job.

The same could also be applied to people that chalk up possible mistakes to outright lying. But that's whole other can of worms. One can not question the cult of hating Bush.

and presumably most of the people who made up the respondents were Christians with a strong faith in the Bible...beats me?

That's pretty close to impossible in my opinion. Even if you casually read the New Testament you'd be robbed of that dissillusion.

Then again, when any old poll, regardless of who ran it and what the sampling was, is given credence in their claims of representing the whole...these are the sort of nonsensical questions you find yourself asking.

Good point, Heralder. As I've said before, I have many questions about 9-11 which are still unanswered, but I think the *basic* facts are in place.

And as for lying v. mistakes, the measure I use for that is how often those "mistakes" happen and whether those "mistakes" benefit the person making them. In the case of Bush and Cheney, clearly the stand to personally benefit from things like the war and many of the environmental dereglations that have taken place while they've been in office. I only believe in coincidences so far.

Heralder, I used to attend a fundamentalist church and I can assure you that the vast majority of them have never read the bible at all. Their knowledge of scripture comes from their preachers and the preachers pick and choose the stuff to match their religious and personal agendas. A perfect example of that is the ridiculous over-emphasis that the religious right puts on homosexuality. It is only mentioned a few places and one quote from the NT is badly mistranslated. The original meaning of the scripture was "people who wear soft cloth,: i.e., the wealthy, but when King James got his hands on it, it came out "effeminate."

So, yeah, the idea that "bible-believing Christians" wouldn't know what's really in the bible doesn't surprise me one bit.

I don't know, I used to attend a non-denominational Christian Church and the bible, understanding the bible, and applying it's good teachings to your everyday life was treated as the most important thing.

While I realize not every church or every congregation will handle it that way, even a very basic understanding of the life of Jesus Christ seems like it would be more than enough to dispel this sort of ignorance.

I still find it highly implausible, but then, you know how I feel about polls. When the results don't seem to make sense it only backs up my general disdain for them.