Confusion over Reality…

I read an article recently that indicated a surprisingly large percentage of people believe that Jesus was married to Mary Madgalene. This kind of news always disturbs me, not because I think it would be a problem for Jesus to have taken a wife (that’s a whole different issue), but because of the failure of people to discern fact from fiction. What a lack of biblical historical knowledge must be in play for people to believe such a thing.

This ignorance is not limited to biblical matters, but extends into all of history. For example, in this article, you can learn that over half of Britons surveyed believe that Sherlock Holmes actually existed. On the other hand, 23 percent of the 3,000 Brits surveyed thought World War II prime minister Winston Churchill was made up.

Who is teaching these people? And what are they being taught? Certainly neither history nor logic. I find this kind of thinking unfathomable.

10 thoughts on “Confusion over Reality…

  1. Reminds me of a quote from “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”: “Logic! What are they teaching these days?” (or something like that).

    You can’t possibly expect public schools to teach anything like the facts because they’re too busy making sure no one’s egos are bruised, no one fails, no one’s self esteem is damaged. Too many parents refuse to take responsibility for teaching their kids how to be respectful and productive human beings and so the schools are becoming stewpots brewing social “norms” and not actually teaching anything. And Universities are just as guilty. I’ll never forget the class I took where my teacher (a graduate student and an idiot, I might add) stood in front of us and told us that “truth is subjective.”

    With education like that, of course Holmes is real, Churchill is fake and Jesus was married to not only one, but several women with a passel of kids. Oh, and Vulcans long ago landed on Earth and we’re now slaves to their overlordship. 🙂

    Now you know why I decided to not be a teacher.

  2. Of course Sherlock Holmes is real along with his cousins Solomon Kane, Professor Moriarty, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Phileas Fogg, Tarzan, Philip Marlowe, Doc Savage, Allan Quatermain, Sam Spade, James Bond and many others.

  3. Well, there are those who have complained that he has the broomstick backwards when he’s flying…

    Hey, if you can put “Jedi” down as your religion on certain surveys, anything is possible, right?

    Right?

  4. Certainly not history and logic…How true! History is a construct of the winners so it should be ignored or deconstruted. Logic is a holdover of modernism where seeking certainty required a systematic, straight line thinking process that is no longer applicable in a world where there is no overarching reality to which truth can correspond. Such is the strange and mysterious PoMo world in which we now find ourselves…in the Uk as well as Curwensville!

  5. Of course it doesn’t revolve around the sun. The earth, and the entire Universe in fact, revolves around THEM.

  6. I felt I had to share this. The trivia question at Curves yesterday was: How many people were on Noah’s Ark? Simple, right? There were eight, Noah and Mrs. Noah, Shem, Ham, Japeth and their wives. Essentially a no brainer (compared to some of the trivia they’ve had.)

    What blew me away was this: the other women, almost every single one, had no idea. They had to ask. The comments ranged from wondering if Noah had a wife, how many children did he have and were they married. Even more interesting was this: One woman’s daughter is getting married soon and she was remarking that the bride and groom need to meet with the priest. Shortly after, she read the trivia question and remarked that she never paid all that much attention to Bible stories anyhow.

    In other words, I do the minimum required by my religion and no more, but I’m still ok.

    Another woman said, “Well, I know the animals went onto the ark two by two.” That’s also incorrect…the clean animals went in by seven’s, but you wouldn’t know that if you’d never read the account in the Bible.

    So, if you need proof that our country is Biblically illiterate, hang out at Curves for a while. (The really scary part, most of these women are teachers and are otherwise intelligent human beings.) It felt like a segment from Jay Leno.

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