Saturday, December 22, 2007 | Reason : In the News | print version

Print | Comments |

Survey finds most Americans believe Jesus born of virgin

by Toledo Blade

Thanks to Jason Gersh for the link.

http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071222/NEWS10/712220363

Survey finds most Americans believe Jesus born of virgin
BLADE RELIGION EDITOR

Legal battles over public displays of religious symbols pop up every Christmas season, but a survey by the Barna Group shows that three-quarters of Americans are in agreement on one of the fundamental elements of the holiday: that Jesus Christ was born to a virgin, Mary.

Three out of four people polled said they believe Jesus was born to a virgin as described in the Gospel narratives, according to the latest Barna survey. The Ventura, Calif.-based polling firm asked 1,005 adults whether they viewed six Bible stories as literal truth or "merely as stories told to communicate life's principles."

George Barna, founder and director of the Barna Group, said in an interview with The Blade that a majority of respondents in virtually all demographic categories voiced a literal belief in the virgin birth.

There was little difference between Protestants and Catholics on this point, he said, but among evangelicals, the percentage who said they believe that the virgin birth was literally true was in "the upper 90s," Mr. Barna said.

Except for atheists and agnostics, of whom just 15 percent took the virgin birth story as historically true, a majority of all other subgroups believed it to be factual.

"As we looked at 65 or 66 different population subgroups, and compared them across all kinds of measures, there really was not much distinction across any of the groups," Mr. Barna said.

In addition, some subgroups in which a majority rejected the literal interpretation of other Bible stories broke the pattern in regard to the virgin birth, he said. For example, 60 percent of people who categorized themselves as "mostly liberal on political and social issues" expressed a literal belief in the virgin birth.

The survey asked similar questions about five other Bible stories, with poll results showing that:

--69 percent of adults believed Jesus turned water into wine at the wedding in Cana.

--68 percent believed Jesus used five loaves of bread and two fish to feed a crowd of 5,000.

--64 percent believed the Earth was covered by a flood in which Noah, his family, and numerous animals were spared by living on an Ark.

--56 percent expressed literal belief in the Bible account of the devil, disguised a serpent, tempting Eve to eat forbidden fruit.

--49 percent accepted as accurate the Bible story of Samson losing his legendary strength when Delilah had his hair cut.

Mr. Barna said more people are prone to believe New Testament stories as literally true than Old Testament writings, a result that was especially notable among Catholics.

Including results from previous recent polls on Bible stories, Mr. Barna said about half of the Catholics surveyed believed Old Testament stories were literal while three-quarters of Catholics said they believed New Testament stories were literally true.

The Barna Group interviewed 1,005 adults by telephone in December, with a sampling error of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.

- David Yonke

Posted: Saturday, December 22, 2007 | Permalink

Comments 1 - 50 of 56 |

Reload Comments | Back to Top | Page Numbers

1. Comment #102312 by JayD on December 22, 2007 at 10:20 am

15% of atheists and agnostics think the virgin birth was historically true? That's rather disturbing.

Other Comments by JayD

2. Comment #102317 by writerdd on December 22, 2007 at 10:35 am

All that means is so many people know the Bible story that Jesus was born of a virgin. It doesn't mean they think it's true. If you ask people "Does Santa Claus live at the North Pole?" most would say "Yes" even though they know it's a fictional story.

Other Comments by writerdd

3. Comment #102318 by bruce on December 22, 2007 at 10:39 am

Except for atheists and agnostics, of whom just 15 percent took the virgin birth story as historically true

I don't think you get to call yourself and atheist or agnostic if you think this is true. On the other hand, I know some self-proclaimed agnostics who are into the healing power of crystals and whatnot.

Other Comments by bruce

4. Comment #102322 by Verylee on December 22, 2007 at 10:49 am

lies - damn lies - and statistics

Other Comments by Verylee

5. Comment #102324 by blueollie on December 22, 2007 at 10:54 am

My Jewish friends tell me: "relax. ALL good Jewish boys think that their mommies are virgins!"

In all honesty, this is hilarious, especially when you consider that the "virgin birth" story resulted from the authors of the gospels using the Septuigant (Greek Bible) which mistakenly translated "young woman" as "virgin" in Isiah.

The Roman Catholic Church insists that this was a divinely ordained mistake! :)

Other Comments by blueollie

6. Comment #102325 by dialector on December 22, 2007 at 11:03 am

I think the survey is bogus. You can make people answer however you want if you ask the question in the right way.

The Barna Group is a pro Christian organization. Of course their published surveys are going to support their cause.

I live in America and I don't know who those people are asking, but I do not know any atheists or agnostics who believe in the virgin birth of Jesus.

In a word, the survey is a lie.

Other Comments by dialector

7. Comment #102326 by Russell's Teapot on December 22, 2007 at 11:08 am

Anyone else notice that the percentage of people who believed in each little Bible story decreased seemingly as a function of how famous the story is? You get huge amounts of people believing in Jesus' virgin birth, then 69% for water into wine, and down to 49% for Samson and Delilah.

Edit: Well now that I think of it, according to my hypothesis Adam and Eve should be higher than that, though they did throw in the bit about the literal devil...Maybe just a function of how the polling questions were asked. How else do you explain 15% virgin birth belief in atheists and agnostics?

Other Comments by Russell's Teapot

8. Comment #102327 by Rtambree on December 22, 2007 at 11:10 am

Shock survey result: 50% of Americans are of below average intelligence.

Other Comments by Rtambree

9. Comment #102330 by BMMcArdle on December 22, 2007 at 11:24 am

83% of all statistics are made-up.

Other Comments by BMMcArdle

10. Comment #102331 by Corylus on December 22, 2007 at 11:27 am

Except for atheists and agnostics, of whom just 15 percent took the virgin birth story as historically true, a majority of all other subgroups believed it to be factual.

One possible explanation for this is that they misunderstood what is meant by "historically true".

Some college educated types brainwashed by postmodernist drivel tend to spew out such notions as "history is merely a series of differing narratives - so simplistic to talk about facts!!"

I smell epistemological relativism and PC bullshit here.

Other Comments by Corylus

11. Comment #102334 by smithyboy on December 22, 2007 at 11:38 am

Except for atheists and agnostics, of whom just 15 percent took the virgin birth story as historically true, a majority of all other subgroups believed it to be factual.

As we looked at 65 or 66 different population subgroups, and compared them across all kinds of measures, there really was not much distinction across any of the groups," Mr. Barna said.

1005 divided by 65 = 15 (which is making an assumption of course). 15% of this is 2 or 3 people. So I don't think anything can be read into this.

Other Comments by smithyboy

12. Comment #102338 by Matt H. on December 22, 2007 at 12:05 pm

except for atheists and agnostics, of whom just 15 percent took the virgin birth story as historically true

Sorry for the swear, but that's bullshit.

It's like saying 15% of atheists believe Mohammed was the sacred prophet of Allah, or Moses was spoken to by Yahweh through a burning bush. You're not an atheist if you believe such nonsense - you are a THEIST.

Other Comments by Matt H.

13. Comment #102340 by delta2echo on December 22, 2007 at 12:10 pm

"Except for atheists and agnostics, of whom just 15 percent took the virgin birth story as historically true, a majority of all other subgroups believed it to be factual."

It says "and agnostics", They group athiests and agnostics into one group. I HIGHLY doubt an athiest would even entertain the idea of a Virgin Birth, but an agnostic might.

If we assume that at a minimum 1 person answered the question in the postitive then that means the group had 6-7 people. Which in total would make up .5% of the total 1005 people survayed. Seeing as there are 66 some-odd groups I dont see this as unreasonable. One person screwen it up for the rest of us!

Other Comments by delta2echo

14. Comment #102341 by alexmzk on December 22, 2007 at 12:13 pm

The Ventura, Calif.-based polling firm asked 1,005 adults whether they viewed six Bible stories as literal truth or "merely as stories told to communicate life's principles."

out of the entire population of America, 1005's not enough for a valid poll.

Other Comments by alexmzk

15. Comment #102342 by NormanDoering on December 22, 2007 at 12:18 pm

How else do you explain 15% virgin birth belief in atheists and agnostics?

Parthenogenesis

Other Comments by NormanDoering

16. Comment #102350 by cyris8400 on December 22, 2007 at 12:51 pm

I think the amount of atheists and agnostics who believe in the Virgin Birth can be ascribed to those who are either ignorant, disbelieving of religion but without interest in science and reason, or [ugh] "spiritual" types.

Other Comments by cyris8400

17. Comment #102354 by Noodly on December 22, 2007 at 1:02 pm

Barna isn't the quite the Christian stooge that you might think at first sight.

From http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_dira.htm:

"Divorce rates among conservative Christians were significantly higher than for other faith groups, and much higher than Atheists and Agnostics experience.

George Barna, president and founder of Barna Research Group, commented:

'While it may be alarming to discover that born again Christians are more likely than others to experience a divorce, that pattern has been in place for quite some time. Even more disturbing, perhaps, is that when those individuals experience a divorce many of them feel their community of faith provides rejection rather than support and healing. But the research also raises questions regarding the effectiveness of how churches minister to families. The ultimate responsibility for a marriage belongs to the husband and wife, but the high incidence of divorce within the Christian community challenges the idea that churches provide truly practical and life-changing support for marriages.'"

Apparently he took a lot of stick from Christians on this, but stuck by his results. No doubt the formulation of this latest survey is open to question, but cut him some slack over his intentions.

Other Comments by Noodly

18. Comment #102356 by Mr DArcy on December 22, 2007 at 1:05 pm

So 75% of those polled believed in the virgin birth. What did Joseph think about his missus being zapped by the holy ghost? Did the droit de seigneur apply to Mary? Apparently so. Hardly a strong basis for the world's biggest organised superstition, where the Lord gets to have his way first.

And yet we get characters like D'Souza arguing that Christianity is the source of the best and only moral code.

Still from Mary's point of view, better to have been shagged by a god, than never to have been shagged at all.

Other Comments by Mr DArcy

19. Comment #102359 by JasonG on December 22, 2007 at 1:11 pm

The Barna Group has a web site discussing their survey in a bit more detail:

http://www.barna.org/FlexPage.aspx?Page=BarnaUpdateNarrow&BarnaUpdateID=286

Notably, however, they don't say precisely how they phrased their questions or whom they were labeling as "atheist" or "agnostic." The fact that *any* atheists or agnostics answered "yes" to this query ought to have prompted the Barna Group to question the validity of their survey (unless, of course, they were interested in inflating the numbers).

Something that's not mentioned in the Toledo Blade article---on the web site above, the Barna Group also claims that 8% of atheists and agnostics accept the story of Eve and the serpent!

Other Comments by JasonG

20. Comment #102372 by ScarSick on December 22, 2007 at 1:54 pm

the Barna Group also claims that 8% of atheists and agnostics accept the story of Eve and the serpent!

This is quite remarkable when that the very story is believed by 56 percent of total respondents. (the second lowest percentage of biblical stories believed in the bible, according to this study).

Also, an earlier poster made a valid criticism of this poll, when questioning the reliability of the poll. Based on the rather small number of respondents, it would be a mistake to draw any conclusions from this study. Clearly, this poll is not represented properly given the misrepresentation of the American population.

Other Comments by ScarSick

21. Comment #102382 by quill on December 22, 2007 at 2:47 pm

I'm also going to call bullshit on this poll. I happen to know that Christians account for considerably less than 75% of the population, and I don't think anyone who is not Christian would believe Jesus of Nazareth was born of a virgin.

One wonders why the options were not simply "literal truth" or "not literal truth". But then, I think I already know why. I used to have some respect for the Barna Group, but not anymore.

Other Comments by quill

22. Comment #102388 by joeyoap on December 22, 2007 at 3:05 pm

Joseph"what do you mean your pregnant we haven't had sex"
Mary"Urrrggh it was god what done it-honest"

Other Comments by joeyoap

23. Comment #102397 by Freelance Cynic on December 22, 2007 at 3:34 pm

joeyoap -

Yeah, I always saw the virgin birth story as the greatest excuse, ever!

Other Comments by Freelance Cynic

24. Comment #102398 by Divineosaur on December 22, 2007 at 3:36 pm

Shenanigans!

Other Comments by Divineosaur

25. Comment #102406 by Paine on December 22, 2007 at 4:13 pm

These surveys are all bullshit, anyway.
Having just identified yourself as a Christian, you're sure as hell not going to go on and deny the virgin birth, are you?

Q. Are you a Christian?
A. Yes

Q. Do you believe Jesus was the son of god?
A. Yes

Q. Do you believe he was born of a virgin?
A. Errrr...actually no, that's just a made up fable.

Even the most feckless moron is not going to say that!

Other Comments by Paine

26. Comment #102414 by prettygoodformonkeys on December 22, 2007 at 4:40 pm

1) Jesus had brothers, children of Mary, and so she was not a virgin. This view is unpopular with the church, and history has been re-written.

2) The average IQ is 100; enough said.

Other Comments by prettygoodformonkeys

27. Comment #102418 by Double Bass Atheist on December 22, 2007 at 4:58 pm

It still amazes me just how many people are so completely unaware of the simple fact that there are dozens of 'virgin birth' deity stories that pre-date Christianity. As Hitchens points out, in the ancient world the female birth canal was considered a one-way street. A corporeal 'god' wasn't legit unless he/she came into this world via a 'virgin birth.' This is such easily ascertained information� why are most people unaware the history of their own religion?

Other Comments by Double Bass Atheist

28. Comment #102435 by Zeratul on December 22, 2007 at 6:42 pm

I am more interested in the details of the Immaculate Copulation (not Conception, mind you). The penetration. ejaculation, etc, etc... No details in the Bible!

Other Comments by Zeratul

29. Comment #102457 by Verylee on December 22, 2007 at 11:40 pm

I've been wondering this a while now and this thread seems a good place to ask! Does anyone know what the proportion, or how many believers visit this site? Do the De Souza's and McGrath's or the clergy visit (for research!)?...is there a record of visits per month anywhere?

Other Comments by Verylee

30. Comment #102461 by Diacanu on December 23, 2007 at 12:05 am

Jaaaaayzus Keeeerist!!

*Facepalm*

Other Comments by Diacanu

31. Comment #102479 by doodinthemood on December 23, 2007 at 1:52 am

About the 15%:
You need to know what the question was. A question like "was Jesus' mother a virgin when he was born?" could easily get a 15% 'yes' response from atheists, while they do not believe in it. As someone said above, "where does father christmas live?" would get an almost 100% 'lapland' from non-father christmas believers.

It's a shame we cannot directly access the survey to see the questions and answers given, and the justification for the 15% stat.

Other Comments by doodinthemood

32. Comment #102493 by Titus on December 23, 2007 at 2:36 am

Wikipedia
"Parthenogenesis is a form of asexual reproduction in which females produce eggs that develop without fertilization. Parthenogenesis is seen to occur naturally in aphids, daphnia, rotifers, and some other invertebrates, as well as in many plants. Komodo dragons and sharks have recently been added to the list of vertebrates�along with several genera of fish, amphibians, and reptiles�that exhibit differing forms of asexual reproduction, including true parthenogenesis."

Mary was a frog, all hail the saviour of frog kind.
Cue the frog chorus.

Other Comments by Titus

33. Comment #102495 by BMMcArdle on December 23, 2007 at 2:46 am

On a lighter note: (Click Here)

I remember watching this as it happened. My brother freaked out because he was about to lose a 20 dollar bet, but won instead.

Other Comments by BMMcArdle

34. Comment #102507 by whig on December 23, 2007 at 3:41 am

Titus wrote:

Wikipedia
"Parthenogenesis is a form of asexual reproduction in which females produce eggs that develop without fertilization. Parthenogenesis is seen to occur naturally in aphids, daphnia, rotifers, and some other invertebrates, as well as in many plants. Komodo dragons and sharks have recently been added to the list of vertebrates�along with several genera of fish, amphibians, and reptiles�that exhibit differing forms of asexual reproduction, including true parthenogenesis."

Mary was a frog, all hail the saviour of frog kind.
Cue the frog chorus.

I was at the Conference of the European Council of Skeptical Organizations in September and in Massimo Pigliucci's presentation he said that Frank Tipler in The Physics of Christianity actually uses parthenogenesis to justify the virgin birth, not extrapolating, of course, on the fact the Jesus would neither be male nor a mammal.

Other Comments by whig

35. Comment #102531 by treeman17 on December 23, 2007 at 6:33 am

From the article, I get the sensation of "so what?" Is this really anything new?

Other Comments by treeman17

36. Comment #102537 by Diplo on December 23, 2007 at 7:00 am

I don't understand Christians. On one hand they preach abstinence as the best form of birth control and on the other they admit that virgins can have babies. What a confusing lot they are!

Other Comments by Diplo

37. Comment #102553 by glittergulch on December 23, 2007 at 8:04 am

Tom Waits said it, I believe it, that settles it!

"Actually, the question I get asked the most is... and somebody today, just... I mean, out of the clear blue sky, somebody came up to me and said 'Tom, is it possible for a girl to get pregnant without intercourse?' I get that all the time. I mean, I get asked that all the time! Anyway... I said, for the answer to this we're gonna have to go all the way back to the civil war. Apparently a stray bullet... This is the truth! A stray bullet actually pierced the testicle of a Union soldier, and then it went on to lodge itself in the ovaries of an eighteen year old girl who was standing two hundred, maybe three hundred feet from him at the time. They'd never even met! How's that for luck! Anyway, you know, she was very happy of course, cause there was something kind of immaculate about the conception, and she did a lot of interviews and that type of thing, and people flew in, and she was on the cover of a lot of magazines at the time. The baby was healthy. Of course, the soldier was pissed off, wouldn't you be? It's actually a FORM of intercourse, but I don't think it's for everybody. Unless you like action. I like action! This is a little song about eh... I got it right out of the encyclopedia..."

Other Comments by glittergulch

38. Comment #102564 by steveroot on December 23, 2007 at 8:35 am

38. Comment #102553 by glittergulch on December 23, 2007 at 8:04 am
Tom Waits said it, I believe it, that settles it!

...'Tom, is it possible for a girl to get pregnant without intercourse?'

Well, snopesdotcom is at least as credible as Tom Waits, which is to say *vastly* more credible than holy scriptures. See:

http://www.snopes.com/pregnant/bullet.asp

The show "Mythbusters" addressed this claim and came to the same conclusion, FWIW.
Steve

Other Comments by steveroot

39. Comment #102570 by steveroot on December 23, 2007 at 8:45 am

In my universe, this amount of variation in the "negative control" would call the results ito question.
Steve

Other Comments by steveroot

40. Comment #102720 by BT Murtagh on December 23, 2007 at 1:12 pm

I just blogged about this:

A new Barna group survey on how literally American take their Bible stories just came out.

To combine with the last Barna survey, amongst Christians:

75% believe a virgin got pregnant.
75% believe a dead guy rose from the grave.
69% believe water transformed into wine.
68% believe 5 loaves and 2 fish fed 5000 people.
65% believe a man overnighted with lions, uneaten.
64% believe water covered every mountain on Earth.
64% believe a sea opened to allow foot passage.
63% believe a boy killed a man using a slingshot.
60% believed a man walked on water.
60% believe the universe was created in 6 days.
56% believe in smooth-talking snakes.
49% believe strength can relate to hairstyle.

Two of these are easy enough even for a rationalist to believe; David used an unexpected weapon and was maybe a bit lucky, and maybe Daniel just didn't smell good to the lions.

A couple more could be considered 'stretchers' with a grain of truth; granting preternatural strength in the first place, it's possible to assign a psychological explanation to Samson's couture concerns, and a lot of people could be satisfied with a little food and a lot of goodwill on a one-time basis.

With a great deal of magnanimity, probably best obtained with the aid of large doses of ethanol, and a suitable disregard for the fine details of the stories, similarly obtained, one can allow for a couple more; talking snakes, while they don't appear to exist now, aren't actually incompatible with the physical laws of the Universe, and the antiquity of the Universe could be fudged a bit - rounding, you know.

That leaves seven stories which contain elements any normal rational person would consider flat-out violations of the natural laws of the Universe.

The odd thing is that the level of belief seems to have very little to do with the plausibility of the story. The Ultimate Catering Triumph of feeding five thousand people with one platter of fish sandwiches is considered less likely than pregnant virgins, ambulatory corpses, and an alcoholic's wet dream. It's considered more likely that a man could split an ocean with his mind, than that a boy could split a man's skull with a well-aimed rock.

I suppose we should be grateful that these people do consider that last story, about the superiority of ranged weapons, as being more likely than the one about guys perambulating the surface of large liquid volumes, but I still have to question their ability to assess relative probabilities.

Bear in mind that these are the folks who consider evolution by natural selection unlikely and difficult to believe.

Other Comments by BT Murtagh

41. Comment #102946 by Tyler Durden on December 24, 2007 at 3:00 am

Such a pity they didn't survey the Archbishop of Canterbury on this one :)

Q: Do you believe in the virgin birth?
A: Well, to be honest, only "as part of what I have inherited".

Q: Do you believe Jesus was born in December?
A: Of course not, "Christmas was when it was because it fitted well with the winter festival."

Q: Do you believe in the nativity?
A: No, "Most of it, could not have happened like that."

Q: Do you believe in the star of Bethlehem?
A: No, as "stars just don't behave like that."

Q: Do you believe in the biblical account of the devil, disguised a serpent, tempting Eve to eat forbidden fruit.
A: No, as "serpents just don't behave like that."

Other Comments by Tyler Durden

42. Comment #103001 by al-rawandi on December 24, 2007 at 6:52 am

Do these people also believe storks deliver babies?

Other Comments by al-rawandi

43. Comment #103331 by Jamougha on December 25, 2007 at 6:56 am

I imagine the 15% stat is simply the result of 15% of people having a bad sense of humour.

Other Comments by Jamougha

44. Comment #103332 by BillySands on December 25, 2007 at 7:28 am

If only they could read properly, they would see that the "virgin birth prophecy" (Isaiah 7:14) has nothing to do with Jesus. I guess that knowing this means that you have to conclude that Matthew was making it all up - hence why they ignore context on this case. It's funny how the fundies will go to the strangest lengths to argue that an atheist is taking a verse out of context though.

Other Comments by BillySands

45. Comment #103706 by drbreakfast on December 26, 2007 at 2:29 pm

I can't believe that any true atheist or agnostic can believe in the virgin birth. Presumably, this oxymoron was the result of poster/polling error or some believers mistakenly identifying him/her self as an atheist, but meaning to state something else.

Putting the 15% oddity aside, it's still rather amazing that so many people take this stuff as true.

Other Comments by drbreakfast

46. Comment #103897 by ianmac66 on December 27, 2007 at 9:07 am

regarding the high percentage of christians who believe in all those miracles,these same christians would not believe that Jesus picked his nose or that he did'nt fart or did not have skid marks on his pants or did'nt fancy a few of the ladies. He was only human .

Other Comments by ianmac66

47. Comment #103898 by robotaholic on December 27, 2007 at 9:19 am

the real story here is the american public's lack of education because the better educated are generally less religious- here is a great wiki article about it-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religiosity_and_intelligence

"the studies...examined, taken together, provided strong evidence for an inverse correlation between intelligence and religious faith in the United States"

Other Comments by robotaholic

48. Comment #103899 by al-rawandi on December 27, 2007 at 9:23 am

robotaholic,

This is old news. I thought everyone already knew about the inverse relationship between intellect and religiosity.

Apparently the religious don't know about it.

Other Comments by al-rawandi

49. Comment #103902 by sent2null on December 27, 2007 at 9:41 am

ianmarc66 wrote:

these same christians would not believe that Jesus picked his nose or that he did'nt fart or did not have skid marks on his pants or did'nt fancy a few of the ladies.

So Jesus wore tighty whities? you learn something new every day. *grin*

Other Comments by sent2null

50. Comment #103903 by robotaholic on December 27, 2007 at 9:43 am

well I know it's old news sure- but educate americans-correct the problem

Other Comments by robotaholic

Reload Comments | Back to Top

More Comments: 1 2 | Next | Last