The not-so-good news from Gallup was that another 47% of those polled continue to regard this book as being inspired by some sort of god and that this number has been stable over 40 years. That means that if one were to combine the number of biblical literalists (24%) with the inspired-by-some-god folks (47%), one would end up having to confront the unsettling reality that 71% of Americans believe that this book is at least divinely inspired.
Of course, one could protest that just because people claim to believe these things in a poll does not mean that they really believe them. I'd agree with that. Many Christians have little idea what their "holy" book says, and many even disregard much of what it says. It is certainly possible that poll questions like this reflect a heavy dose of social desirability (i.e., many of the respondents said they believe in divine inspiration because they think this will be viewed favorably). But even if that is the case here, I cannot help finding the idea that 71% of Americans would indicate that they believe this to be more than a little troubling.
Despite the progress we've made, it seems like we still have a long way to go. The vast majority of our neighbors appear to regard one book as something far more than a book. Some even consider it to be a valuable source of evidence for the claims it contains. It seems to me that beliefs like this will continue to set an upper limit on the sort of society we can have, holding us back in many important ways.
