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<div>Thank you, Wayne. The more people learn about the religions they are supposed to believe the less likely they are to believe them. </div><div><br></div><div>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. </div><div><br></div><div>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."</div><div><br></div><div>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. </div><div><br></div><div>To such people I feel like saying, "Please read the bloody book!"</div><div><br></div><div>Ralph</div><div><br></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Courier; min-height: 16px; ">Art Deco wrote:</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Courier" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Courier">Atheists Know More About Religion Than the Pious</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Courier" size="4" color="#000af1" style="font: 13.0px Courier; color: #000af1"><a href="http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/atheists_know_more_about_religion_than_religious_people_20100928/"><u>http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/atheists_know_more_about_religion_than_religious_people_20100928/</u><u></u></a></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Courier" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Courier">Posted on Sep 28, 2010</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Courier" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Courier">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.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Courier; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Courier" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Courier">Here are some of Pew's surprising findings:</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Courier; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Courier" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Courier"> 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.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Courier; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Courier" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Courier"> 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.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Courier; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Courier; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Courier; min-height: 16px; "> Complete Pew Survey (very interesting!):</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Courier; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Courier" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Courier"> <a href="http://pewforum.org/Other-Beliefs-and-Practices/U-S-Religious-Knowledge-Survey.aspx"><font color="#000af1" style="color: #000af1"><u>http://pewforum.org/Other-Beliefs-and-Practices/U-S-Religious-Knowledge-Survey.aspx</u></font></a></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Courier; min-height: 16px; "><br></div><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px"><font face="Courier" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Courier"> </font><br class="khtml-block-placeholder"></p></div></body></html>