A New York Times "The Stone" post from yesterday (5:15 PM, by John Allen Paulos) was titled—
Stories vs. Statistics
Related Google searches—
"How to lie with statistics"— about 148,000 results
"How to lie with stories"— 2 results
What does this tell us?
Consider also Paulos's phrase "imbedding the God character." A less controversial topic might be (with the spelling I prefer) "embedding the miraculous." For an example, see this journal's "Mathematics and Narrative" entry on 5/15 (a date suggested, coincidentally, by the time of Paulos's post)—
* Not directly related to the novel The Embedding discussed at Tenser, said the Tensor on April 23, 2006 ("Quasimodo Sunday"). An academic discussion of that novel furnishes an example of narrative as more than mere entertainment. See Timothy J. Reiss, "How can 'New' Meaning Be Thought? Fictions of Science, Science Fictions," Canadian Review of Comparative Literature , Vol. 12, No. 1, March 1985, pp. 88-126. Consider also on this, Picasso's birthday, his saying that "Art is a lie that makes us realize truth…."