[Vision2020] Religious Knowledge Test Scores

[Ralph Nielsen]

Thank you, Wayne. The more people learn about the religions they are  
supposed to believe the less likely they are to believe them.

For the same reason, the best biblical research has been done by  
scholars who are not restrained by ecclesiastical or dogmatic  
constraints, like concern for tenure, publications, pensions, etc.

Personally, I have been told by several local young people that they  
have been told not to discuss the Bible with me because, as one young  
man put it, I know the Bible "like the back of my hand."

I have often encountered people who imagine that the Bible is a  
wonderful book that would solve practically all of the world's  
problems if only people would read it and follow what it says.

To such people I feel like saying, "Please read the bloody book!"

Ralph

Art Deco wrote:
Atheists Know More About Religion Than the Pious
http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/ 
atheists_know_more_about_religion_than_religious_people_20100928/
Posted on Sep 28, 2010
Well, this is awkward. The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life  
undertook a study in which nonbelievers correctly answered more  
religious knowledge questions than the devout. Mormons and Jews also  
scored well and, like atheists, know more about Christianity than  
Christians.

Here are some of Pew's surprising findings:

   More than four-in-ten Catholics in the United States (45%) do not  
know that their church teaches that the bread and wine used in  
Communion do not merely symbolize but actually become the body and  
blood of Christ. About half of Protestants (53%) cannot correctly  
identify Martin Luther as the person whose writings and actions  
inspired the Protestant Reformation, which made their religion a  
separate branch of Christianity. Roughly four-in-ten Jews (43%) do  
not recognize that Maimonides, one of the most venerated rabbis in  
history, was Jewish.

   In addition, fewer than half of Americans (47%) know that the  
Dalai Lama is Buddhist. Fewer than four-in-ten (38%) correctly  
associate Vishnu and Shiva with Hinduism. And only about a quarter of  
all Americans (27%) correctly answer that most people in Indonesia- 
the country with the world's largest Muslim population-are Muslims.


  Complete Pew Survey (very interesting!):

   http://pewforum.org/Other-Beliefs-and-Practices/U-S-Religious- 
Knowledge-Survey.aspx


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