http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/odd/8032970/atheists-jews-top-religious-knowledge-survey/

They may not believe in God or gods but they know a thing or two about them.

Atheists and agnostics topped a survey of religious knowledge among Americans released on Tuesday by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

"On average, Americans correctly answer 16 of the 32 religious knowledge questions on the survey. Atheists and agnostics average 20.9 ... Jews and Mormons do about as well, averaging 20.5 and 20.3 correct answers," Pew said.

It found Protestants answered 16 correctly and Catholics on average 14.7.

On questions about the Bible and Christianity, Mormons and white evangelical Protestants scored the highest, while Jews, atheists and agnostics trumped the other faiths on their knowledge of Buddhism, Hinduism and Judaism.

"While previous surveys by the Pew Research Center have shown that America is among the most religious of the world's developed nations, this survey shows that large numbers of Americans are not well informed about the tenets, practices, history and leading figures of major faith traditions -- including their own," said Pew, which is based in Washington.

To see the "U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey" go to: http://pewforum.org/Other-Beliefs-and-Practices/U-S-Religious-Knowledge-Survey.aspx

Highlights of the survey include:

_ More than four-in-10 Catholics do not know that their church teaches that the bread and wine used in Communion actually become the body and blood of Christ.

- About half of Protestants cannot correctly identify Martin Luther as the person who sparked the Protestant Reformation.

- Less than half identified Buddhism as the Dalai Lama's religion, 51 percent knew that Joseph Smith was Mormon and 54 percent correctly said the Koran is the Islamic holy book. More than 80 percent knew that Mother Teresa was Catholic.

- Nine-in-10 Americans know U.S. Supreme Court rulings do not allow teachers to lead public school classes in prayer. But two-thirds incorrectly said Supreme Court rulings prevent them from using the Bible as an example of literature.

Religious knowledge has very little to do with personal religious belief, and even less to do with spirituality.

Good general knowledge about the Bible, the Torah, the Qu'ran or the Vedda just means that the person is well read. It certainly doesn't mean that they will be more compassionate towards others.

The question remains - Can an atheist really understand religion without understanding gods?

When it comes down to the nitty gritty, most people in religious circles will agree that theologists understand religions best. However, the paradox remains that a fair proportion of theologists (even Christian theologists) are actually atheists.

muso wrote on Sep 29^th, 2010 at 11:01am:


Of course you can muso.....
Religion is just a set of rules and ideas built by humans to explain the unexplainable....
You can understand the structure and the belief system, without accepting the existence of the deity it's built around....

gizmo_2655 wrote on Sep 29^th, 2010 at 1:27pm:


Your definition of religion says to me that you don't get it.

As an Ignostic, I sit on the fence, but I see both sides of the argument.

A Theist says - There is a God.
An Atheist says - There is no God.
An Ignostic says - Tell me what a God is in a way I can understand and we'll talk.


Quote:


It means that they haven't experienced God.

Quote:


Do you always act so condescending whenever you're talking about something that people are sensitive about?

aikmann4 wrote on Sep 29^th, 2010 at 2:25pm:


People are sensitive about their atheism?  I must apologise.

What does that mean? Are you saying that they dont have moral or ethical principles?

- Darkhall67

What does it mean??? It means you ought to read my responses a tad more carefully.

Oh and another thing  ...  there are no hidden messages in my replies to other posters.

I know what you mean. It's like reading a harsh critique of a show in the newspaper, and then saying "Now I've read the critique, I know everything about the show, so I don't need to go"

- Muso

Precisely!!!

Thank you .. and well put