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Comment by wwilim | Hacker News Reader

I think you might be taking it a little too literally

Approximately two-thirds of all Americans, including non-Christians, believe that Christ was literally resurrected in the physical form.[1] It is terrifying how many people in the US believe the bible is literally true in every way.

1. https://research.lifeway.com/2020/09/08/americans-hold-compl...

It feels disingenuous to come to the conclusion that Christians take all / most of the bible "too literally" on the evidence that they believe Christ was literally resurrected in the physical form.

If you were unaware, belief that Christ died for our sins and was resurrected is taught as the prerequisite to salvation and entering Heaven upon death. Given this fact, I would expect 100% of Christians to believe this.

As an additional note, modern Christianity (except maybe Catholicism) brush a lot of the old testament under the rug, of which includes Ecclesiastes I believe? Some churches teach Matthew 5:17 as support for doing so. Catholicism seems to have a more nuanced take: https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/did-jesus-r...

Please look at the source I linked. 48% of all Americans, including non-Christians, believe "the Bible is 100% accurate in all it teaches".

100% accurate and 100% literal are far from the same thing.

I have no clue how the surveyors or surveyees interpreted this, but "100% accurate in all it teaches" does not necessarily mean Biblical Literalism. A Christian probably should believe that the Bible is 100% accurate, but Biblical Literalism has many flaws that should be quite obvious to anyone who has read it.

That’s consistent with all the varieties of inerrancy, but those are often very different than literalism. It is, for instance, consistent with the decidedly non-literalist Catholic doctrine of inerrancy, to wit, “The books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of salvation.”

I can believe the teachings are accurate without losing the ability to understand that the teachings are sometimes conveyed via parable or metaphor. "That it teaches" is doing a lot of the lifting there.

Not sure about you but people with beliefs I don’t agree with don’t keep me up at night.

Who cares?

It absolutely matters what other people believe if they also want to make laws and rules based on those beliefs.

If they believe that Christ was resurrected in physical form what impact does that have on laws?

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