(06-16-2016, 07:26 AM)Odin Wrote:(06-15-2016, 11:47 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Barna polls seem quite varied in their questions and in the percentages of responses to them. I don't see how you can say that Barna has proven that only 10% of Americans are Biblical Christians.
What I see in Barna is that their very fundamentalist view of Christianity colors their questions. They claim that "contradictions" are shown between some answers Christians give and the true Christian religion where there are none, except in their own minds.
Barna cannot be useful, because they assume such things as the existence of Satan as truly "Biblical," whereas in fact Satan is not a necessary part of the Christian religion, and there's no basis for assuming the existence of such a being. It is a symbol of human temptation, but they take it quite literally. They make other such claims as well. They claim that symbolic interpretations of the Bible are invalid. They assume that to be a Christian you must deny that other religions offer the same truths, and hold that Christianity is the only religion in which truth is found. Such views are intolerant and foster hatred. They live in the Dark Ages.
IMO the popular conception of "Satan" goes against the essence of standard Christian theology and is an expression of the Manichean impulse that constantly erupts out of Christianity. When you listen to what the typical Evangelical thinks about Satan they literally sound like a Manichean.
"Satan" has become the scapegoat for every human foible from addictive behavior to genocide. We do not live in a perfect universe, and "Satan" allows for non-natural evil. One might not attribute Satan to hurricanes, forest fires, tsunamis, or volcanic eruptions, but one can compare evil people to "Satan". Sure,the world would be perfect were it not for "sin" for which "Satan" is given much of the blame. Thus "Satan" tempted me to cheat on taxes, take from the till, deal in insider information, start a Ponzi scheme, deal drugs, or commit adultery.
If it were such a perfect world we would not have such horrors as the Atlantic slave trade, Stalinism, the Holocaust, child sexual abuse, and internet trolls.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.