Some mind boggling survey responses from self described Christians. It seems a great many Christians believe some silly notions. Surprise. Surprise.

It seems that about 60 percent of “Christians” at least somewhat agree that Satan is not a real entity but simply a metaphor for evil. But while holding that view, 65% also believe that people can be influenced by demons or evil spirits.

I’m not sure how these two things are possible. If they’re a symbol how can they affect you?

And get this, about 40% of Christians believe that Jesus might have sinned while on Earth. Uh…So let me get this straight. According to polled Christians, a very real Jesus might have been influenced by pretend demons and committed very real sins?

All I can say to many Christians, is get thee to Catechism.

But the more I think about it, doesn’t this all make some sense in the end? Satan would mean there’s a Hell. And we don’t like consequences so therefore we don’t believe in Satan and we then don’t have to believe in Hell. Easy.

So we’ve gotten rid of consequences. But we’re still left with some guilt of our own sins. So we have to rid ourselves of accountability so we say demons made us do it.

So if we are simply willing to hold a few mutually exclusive ideas in our heads and simply not introduce them to each other we can get along quite nicely with consequence-less sinning with no accountability. Ah, the modern mind!

In case, you don’t believe me, below is the news, according to theTimes News:

Four out of ten Christians (40%) strongly agreed that Satan “is not a living being but is a symbol of evil.” An additional two out of ten Christians (19%) said they “agree somewhat” with that perspective. A minority of Christians indicated that they believe Satan is real by disagreeing with the statement: one-quarter (26%) disagreed strongly and about one-tenth (9%) disagreed somewhat. The remaining 8% were not sure what they believe about the existence of Satan.

Although a core teaching of the Christian faith is the divinity and perfection of Jesus Christ, tens of millions of Christians do not accept that teaching. More than one-fifth (22%) strongly agreed that Jesus Christ sinned when He lived on earth, with an additional 17% agreeing somewhat. Holding the opposing view were 9% who disagreed somewhat and 46% who disagreed strongly. Six percent did not have an opinion on this matter.

Much like their perceptions of Satan, most Christians do not believe that the Holy Spirit is a living force, either. Overall, 38% strongly agreed and 20% agreed somewhat that the Holy Spirit is “a symbol of God’s power or presence but is not a living entity.” Just one-third of Christians disagreed that the Holy Spirit is not a living force (9% disagreed somewhat, 25% disagreed strongly) while 9% were not sure.

A majority of Christians believe that a person can be under the influence of spiritual forces, such as demons or evil spirits. Two out of three Christians agreed that such influence is real (39% agreed strongly, 25% agreed somewhat), while just three out of ten rejected the influence of supernatural forces (18% disagreed strongly, 10% disagreed somewhat). The remaining 8% were undecided on this matter.