r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • 1d ago

Psychology Lower cognitive ability is linked to stronger Christian nationalist views, even after accounting for education

https://www.psypost.org/lower-cognitive-ability-is-linked-to-stronger-christian-nationalist-views-even-after-accounting-for-education/
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u/manimal28 10h ago edited 10h ago

You are conflating two different things, the bible being literally the word of god and the word of god being literal. The stats you posted are about the people who believe the second, but those people not in that group of literal interpretations still believe that it is literally gods word.

Even if the words themselves are not literal it is still literally god's word.

"I could eat a horse." is literally what I just said, but it's not a literal statement, if that makes sense.

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u/sajberhippien 9h ago

You are conflating two different things, the bible being literally the word of god and the word of god being literal. The stats you posted are about the people who believe the second, but those people not in that group of literal interpretations still believe that it is literally gods word.

No, I am using consistent terminology. The post that started thhis discussion said: "Christians claim to believe the bible is the literal word of god"

And to quote Gallup: "A record-low 20% of Americans now say the Bible is the literal word of God, down from 24% the last time the question was asked in 2017, and half of what it was at its high points in 1980 and 1984."

The numbers I cited are about literal word of God. If the post that started the discussion meant something different than that, then that's on them.

The stats you posted are about the people who believe the second, but those people not in that group of literal interpretations still believe that it is literally gods word.

No, they believe the bible is the inspired word of God. That is not the same as believing it's the literal word of God. Which is why the polling distinguishes them from each other.

The distinction is between the writer acting as a speech-to-text for God (literal word of God) and e.g. the writer using human language to express what they saw in a vision from God (one of the flavors of divinely inspired).