Pew Survey: Atheists Know the Most About Religion!
This comes as no surprise to me at all. We know the most about it because the more we learned the less we could believe.
Respondents to the survey were asked 32 questions with a range of difficulty, including whether they could name the Islamic holy book and the first book of the Bible, or say what century the Mormon religion was founded. Atheists and agnostics scored highest, with an average of 21 correct answers. Link
42 comments:
Makes sense, I know several atheists/agnostics who have read the bible cover to cover, but have yet to debate a Christian who can claim to have sat down and read the book in it's entirety. They usually say something like "well I'm sure I've seen every passage, I've been going to church since I was born."
That isn't the same thing as reading it people.
~Rhacot
The "I've been going to church since I was born" argument hardly means that they've seen every passage. There's loads of stuff in the Bible that pastors avoid--all that slavery and genocide stuff, for example. (Weird, eh?)
"the more we learned the less we could believe"
Yes, and I wonder if it is just as effective for a curious theist to learn about other religions (outside of the family of religions they were indoctrinated into) in eroding their belief in a god as it is for them to gain in-depth knowledge of one religion. At least, I feel like the turning point in my life was when I began looking at the history and origination of Christianity (what they don't tell you in Sunday school or Bible studies) and also at non-Christian religions and pseudo-religious movements.
Regarding atheists who know more about religions than most religionists:
Madalyn O'Hair disliked what she called "philosophical atheists," who devote too much time to studying and criticizing religious beliefs instead of living as flourishing animals. She calls the latter sort of atheist, who ignores religion as irrelevant and useless instead of fighting it, the "Maslovian type."
I have to admit she has a point.
I have an uncle, retired Christian clergy, who put most of the sermons he had used to that point into a database in the early 80's and has kept it pretty much up to date since. I once showed him how to sort and search the database, create, new tables and queries and other standard database stuff. I saw him at a family function a while later and he told me some things that surprised me, but were simply raw numbers to him until I pointed out how curious some of the numbers were. He told me that the total number of distinct Bible verses he had used in his more than 2500 public addresses - some weren't formally sermons - over nearly forty years was less than 300. It shocked him when I pointed out that the Bible has more than 30,000 verses so he had used less than one percent of them. The next time I was at his house, together we did some repair and cleanup on the database, changing the numbers a wee bit, but leaving the total number of verses used still less than 300 for most of forty years of sermons.
If he is at all representative, Christians could absorb every word their preacher says for a lifetime and not hear even a significant fraction of their Bible.
Like KGB agents who know the most about America, more than Americans themselves, and CIA agents who know the most about Russia, more so than Russians themselves... :-)
I started reading and then went to the door - I thought I heard a kitty meow.
I actually read this article on huff post before I read it here.
For years I kept telling people in my church that most Christians are very ignorant. It was astonishing how many actually knew anything about other religions, theology, or the Bible. Especially the ones that were born and raised with fundamentalism there whole life.
Christians are to busy with there real-estate ventures and other things to care about what they actually believe. They pay "the pastor" to think for them".
Or they just read the N.T. over, and over, and over again.
If anyone wants to take the test, you'll see that it isn't a Bible knowledge test. Before Pew's servers quit on me, through 10 questions only 2 were general Bible knowledge. The rest were from world religions.
Just a little bit of clarification.
I'll paste the link, because I'm still an html noob:
http://features.pewforum.org/quiz/us-religious-knowledge
Part of the problem is that Christians read the bible using "Bible Guides" and such like - when I was a Christian Theist (now I'm a Christian Atheist like Jesus himself ;-) I used various guides in my "Quiet Time", and let that dictate what I read, and the context in which I could read it. There are even some guides that will take you through the whole bible, but they are structured in such a way that you can't see what the *bible* is telling you. They break stuff up, give you false historical context, interpret stuff in a light that the authors cannot possibly have intended.
Most importantly, they break up the gospels so you don't notice the inherent clashes between them, particularly around the resurrection.
But woe betide you if you start using your Quiet Time to read the bible on its own, to cross-check passages, to correlate biblical history with "real" history. Then you'll be in for a shock. When you find out, for instance, that Sennacherib died TWENTY YEARS after his embarrassment in the siege of Jerusalem, you have to wonder, or that the "empire" of David and Solomon, if it existed at all, was a tiny polity caught between proper empires that didn't even notice its existence.
The bible is great, and it makes fantastic atheists. Maybe someone should produce a Quiet Time guide to take people through the rough and dirty parts...
I think the survey suffers from a fatal flaw in that presumably most atheists were "converts" (deconverts?) If they only surveyed those who converted to something, the numbers would probably be fairly even.
Regardless, it does show what a poor job the church does in educating its people.
@ ashwan
In some denominations the education is there. They take pride in "trying to tackle the tough issues" The problem is fat cat upper middle class Christians don't give a rip. If your the Pastor, why shake things up, just keep the tithing checks flowing.
But at the end of the day these christians have the same weak aplogetic arguments that they use over and over again, no matter how many times they have been refuted....
It's not really surprising, previous studies have shown a link between education and the likelihood of being atheist.
I have to say being an atheist is an educational experience.
For instance, given that the US is predominant Catholic and Protestant, if I didn't cross paths with the troll Lvka I wouldn't learn about the eastern orthodox hoax known as "holy fire".
John,
Why did you misrepresent the title of the link. It says Atheists outdo some believers in religion. Not that atheists know the most about religion. Methinks this again is another atheist spin doctor in the likes of Dawkins etc..
Phil
ahswan,
Different Christianities teach different things anyway. It's not just a matter of churches doing a rotten job of communicating their message. In any case the work of believing is supposedly up to the believer, not the church.
This is one of the funniest things I've ever seen. A bunch of atheists dancing around singing:
We know more than you do
We know more than you do
While most atheists are, in the words of Chesterton, “Mere brute beasts,” some are intelligent.
Those that have been blessed in that manner admire and worship their intelligence as though the gift instead of the Giver of that gift had the power to save.
Jesus used parables to reveal truth to hearts that were receptive, and to conceal truth from those who were not receptive.
Atheists who fancy themselves to be intelligent say, "I know more about these parable than Christians do. Pew researchers say I do."
Does irony make you sigh? Or perhaps bring a tear to the eye?
People who frequent this blog have read / heard the parables, perhaps several dozen times over the years:
They learned nothing
They heard nothing
They saw nothing
They got nothing
They walked away empty in mind and soul saying,
“That was easy!”
Nothing revealed -
Nothing received -
“That was easy!”
We know more than you do.
We know more than you do.
“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. For it is written: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate."”
1st Corinthians 1:18-20
It seems that on atheism you can know everything and nothing all at the same time.
@Thesauros
People who frequent this blog have read / heard the parables, perhaps several dozen times over the years:
They learned nothing
They heard nothing
They saw nothing
They got nothing
They walked away empty in mind and soul saying,
“That was easy!”
Nothing revealed -
Nothing received -
“That was easy!”
Ya, it was real easy for me to walk away. I left a fiancee and friends that I held dear for years. It was actually quite horrid and painful.
How do you deal with someone like Bruce Gerencser, who was a Pastor for twenty-five years and left his only way of providing for family?
Yeah, my favorite one is where Jesus throws a temper tantrum and smites a fig tree for being empty of fruit, and when the disciples get all impressed by how quickly the tree withers, he tells them that they can do that, and move mountains around, too, if their faith is pure enough. True story!
Why God ever created DM and Cockroaches, I’ll never know!
"It seems that on atheism you can know everything and nothing all at the same time."
Isn't that convenient, even when atheists appear smart they are still stupid. But it fits I suppose, the only true intelligence is the recognition that there's an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent creator whose infallible word is The Bible. Heck, why else could a quote from the book substitute for Q.E.D.?
Brad,
While the inability to answer specific questions might not seem damning by one Christianity looking at another, there were some core questions that make a strong point about the gulf laying between the theologians thinking and the thinking among the laymen. One question that sticks in my mind (I got them all right by the way, though I did have to ponder a moment the question about the First Great Awakening) is the one concerning transubstantiation. I know that's not part of your particular Christianity, but for the half of all Christians it does pertain to, I think it was only around half of them who answered it the way the Roman Catholic theologians tell them they must for their salvation to be possible. It makes the point that church doctrine is for theologians, not laymen.
At the same time, there have been many studies done by groups with strong Christian ties exposing the deep lack of Biblical, general Christian and sect-specific knowledge and understanding among those who self-identify as "Christian" here in the US. Such ignorance is not surprising given that Americans read very little, and, in particular, they do not read the Bible. That includes clergy. I think, however, that the extent of the ignorance makes it apparent that years of repetitive Sunday School, liturgy, and catechism does not sink in. Laymen don't believe what theologists and apologists claim they do.
Brad
This page has some interesting notables:
http://www.theologicalstudies.org/page/page/1573625.htm
To me it's sad that the Bible is not understood as the literary source it is. In one study half the people could not name the person who delivered The Sermon on the Mount. Most self-identified Christians cannot name as many as five of the Ten Commandments. In a study I read a couple of years ago, less than a third of self-identified Christians could name all four New Testament Gospels and only half could name two. In many of the studies of Biblical knowledge a sizable fraction, usually more than ten percent, can't name the first book of the Bible. Some of the results are hilarious, too. In one study more than ten percent of those polled named Joan of Arc as Noah's wife. Yet, they claim Christianity to be their worldview, and apologists always look for the "Christian" label when making arguments by the numbers.
From the site I noted above one researcher is quoted:
“Literally millions of Americans who declare themselves to be Christians contend that Jesus was just like the rest of us when it comes to temptation—fallen, guilty, impure, and Himself in need of a savior.”[12]
One paragraph states,
According to Barna, the denomination with the highest commitment to essential Christian doctrines is the Assembly of God denomination. In the AOG, 77% believe the Bible is accurate; 70% believe Christ was sinless. Yet only two-thirds (64%) affirm that works don’t earn heaven. Only 56% believe Satan is real. So even in the most theologically committed denomination, large percentages of people still deny essential Christian doctrines.[11]
I've been studying the Christianities for a long time and the most important thing I've learned is that Christianity is whatever a person, the individual, imagines it to be: theologians, sect founders and leaders can make up new gods, new doctrines and new theologies, but the man in the pew is blazing his own theological path, independent of the movers, shakers and definers in his sect. They're all making it up.
Even in sects where everybody says the same words, their personalized semantics overrides the dogma the theologist thought he was defining. One study that drilled down closer to the subject's semantics found 40 theologically distinct versions of a god among a 350 member Roman Catholic denomination.
No matter what people say they believe, if you do the work to learn what is actually taking place in their minds, you very often discover that even those sharing the same pew have differing gods, saviors, paths to salvation, and rules they live by and teach their children. If the content of one's mind, that is, what one believes, actually matters to the creator of the universe, then with all the variability, perhaps at least one believer will have gotten it right come the time for said creator to judge the quick and the dead.
Russ,
I think most of the hand-wringing over "ignorant" Christians is ameliorated when a study controls for regular church attendance.
Also, I think that personal conscience in religion is very healthy, and that theology and interpretation is done in community. Perhaps that's American idealism talking in me, but it seems that is what works the best over history.
What this study shows is that ordinary people don't know much, at least in America I guess. It's a religious version of "Jay walking" where Jay Leno asks bystanders simple questions of geography or history and they fail miserably. I don't see what grand conclusions one should draw from that.
It does point out that atheists have an insider's level of knowledge of religion. I think that is because they *are* insiders. This is a priestly debate between competing priestly classes.
Who else but a priest spends their lives debating theology?
I read it and did quite well! only got one wrong.
Surprisng, me being a Christian and all...
SWEET!
Thesauros:
You really are the most ignorant, hateful, imbecilic little troll. I remember your performance on Atheist Revolution a couple of years ago, when you were still calling yourself Makarios, in which you asserted that Gandhi was in hell. You make me sick.
You ought not to be allowed to have opinions, let alone express them. You simply haven't the intellectual capacity. Frankly, you haven't the brains your Imaginary Friend has purportedly given an inanimate object.
Makes you wonder how many theologies are under one roof on any given Sunday in any given church.
cipher - so - pretending you don't like me is supposed to accomplish what exactly? I see you still don't need God in order to be a nice person.
@cipher
Hopefully one day the state will take their children away for abuse, and put people like thesauros in indoctrination camps.
cipher - are you saying that you believe that hell DOES exist and you're offended that Gandhi isn't in heaven which you also believe in? Is that why you're so upset?
@exreformed - the only difference between North American atheists of today and Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Honecker, Castro, Ho, Marx, Engels, Lenin, Kim, Ceausescu etc. etc. is power.
And I suppose I shoud be grateful for that :-)
@exreformed: Hopefully one day the state will take their children away for abuse, and put people like thesauros in indoctrination camps.
As I say here and on other blogs all the time, there is a growing body of evidence indicating a neurological foundation for fundamentalism/authoritarianism. If more research bears this out (as I'm convinced it will, if we have the money and time to put into it), then reeducation is useless. Quarantine them, and breed them out of the genome. It's humanity's only hope for survival.
In any case, whether it's physiological (and therefore likely heritable) or environmental - then yes, by all means, take their kids away. It's a form of child abuse. In the meantime, we need mandatory testing of intelligence, sanity and level of emotional development with minimum acceptable levels established as a prerequisite for voting. On this, I'm immovable.
"On this, I'm immovable."
:O
Theosauros; as Cipher said, you are obviously nothing more than an imbecilic troll. Guess what? Contrary to what your pastor/priest/shaman told you, atheism is not a world-view, but merely a disbelief in god/gods. Period. In contrast, the bible ordains every atrocity imaginable-mass murder, slavery, genocide, polygamy- and that's what Christians have been doing for over a thousand years. What if I said, "In my opinion, the only difference between modern Christians like you and men like Pope Innocent III, John Calvin, Richard the Lionhearted, Thomas de Torquemada, Hitler and Jim Jones is power."
Eh??
Quarantine them, and breed them out of the genome. It's humanity's only hope for survival.
Well said!
Yes, but you don't mention that Jews and Mormons also scored highly in the survey.
i've noticed that nontheists in this thread tout how great their "knowledge" is while omitting that ludicrous mormons scored as high on the test as atheists.
also, southern evangelical protestants scored essentially as good as atheists. those people are supposed to be dumb, inbred, racist, hick bumpkins. i guess loftus isn't right when he says christians are anti intellectual
B.R.
atheism is not a world-view, but merely a disbelief in god/gods. Period.
this is patently false. nontheism (qua atheism) is most certainly a worldview. you can use semantics and call it nonbelief but that implies belief in something else.
In contrast, the bible ordains every atrocity imaginable-mass murder, slavery, genocide, polygamy
where?
that's what Christians have been doing for over a thousand years.
christianity has been probably the greatest force for good in history. christianity is responsible for way more good than bad.
So not believing in God/Gods is a worldview... hmm... I guess, in light of the way atheists' lives are changed(for the better) when they reject deities, I can give you this one.
"Where?"
Perhaps you should read the Old Testament. Slavery; Leviticus 25;44-47:
"And as for your male and female slaves whom you may have- from the nations that are around you, from them you may buy male and female slaves.(45)Moreover you may buy the children of the strangers who dwell among you, and their families who are with you, which they beget in your land; and they shall become your property. (46)And you may take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them as a possession; they shall be your permanent slaves. But regarding your brethren, the children of Israel, you shall not rule over one another with vigor."
That's a great god you worship, trae. Oh, and the bible also sanctions sexism, racism, infanticide, and discrimination against the handicapped. I'll provide the scripture tomorrow if I have time.
Good night.
B.R.
continued...
Genocide/Mass murder/Infanticide;
Exodus 34; 11-14-
"Observe what I command you this day. Behold, I am driving out from before you the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite. (12)Take heed to yourself, lest yu make a covenant with the (rightful, I'm afraid)inhabitants of the land where you are going, lest it be a snare in your midst. (13)But you shall destroy their altars, break their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden images."
Gee, it's nice to know that God respects people's right to follow any religion...
Anyway, God commands the Hebrews to obliterate the Canaanites in order to steal their land. And that's what they did.
Joshua 6;21-
"And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, ox and sheep and donkey, with the edge of the sword."
And again, right after god commands the Hebrews to destroy an entire family for the crime of one man(like the way he supposedly punished the entire human race for the crime of Adam & Eve).
Joshua 8; 24-26-
"(24)And it came to pass when Israel had made an end of slaying all the inhabitants of Ai in the field, in the wilderness where they pursued them, and when they all had fallen by the edge of the sword until they were consumed, that all the Israelites returned to Ai and struck it with the edge of the sword. (25)So it was that all who fell that day, both men and women, were twelve thousand-all the people of Ai. (26)For Joshua did not draw back his hand, with which he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai."
One must wonder why an all-powerful, all-knowing, benevolent, merciful, loving Creator would command merciless slaughter in one age, and love/forgiveness in another.
I'll post the rest before the end of the week if I can.
With Regards,
B.R.
B.R.
in light of the way atheists' lives are changed(for the better) when they reject deities, I can give you this one.
Keep in mind that there have been atheists who followed the evidence and became Christians and say their lives are so much better.
Perhaps you should read the Old Testament. Slavery; Leviticus 25;44-47:
the customary slavery indictment. First, people who parrot this issue usually overlook the hundreds of verses about the worth and value of all people. It is absolutely clear from the Bible that God cherishes all people regardless of their current social status. second, the passages like the one you cite are about respect for others, not the oppression or abuse of others. Third, it should be obvious from the Bible that God wants us to overcome our circumstances. God is going to allow people to be tempted and to suffer. We were never promised a “fair” life. The point is to rise above and don’t quit on God just because life gets tough.
Genocide/Mass murder/Infanticide; Exodus 34; 11-14-
it’s typical for people who criticize the God of the OT to cite alleged crimes against Canaanites. For each circumstance in the OT, the Canaanites were warned by God to desist. They didn’t. they got punished. Critics point to the end of the story and never include the context.
Gee, it's nice to know that God respects people's right to follow any religion...
Freedom of religion was not the issue in the passage you cited.
One must wonder why an all-powerful, all-knowing, benevolent, merciful, loving Creator would command merciless slaughter in one age, and love/forgiveness in another.
There are two problems with this statement. First, you are implying that God was not loving in the OT, which is mistaken. Second, the reason why the situation changed from the OT to the NT is because of the ministry of Christ. The law of the OT now retains a different role for us.
Ah, it's great to back home from my road-trip. Anyway, mushing on...
So? By itself, this means nothing.
The customary hand waving. "The Wholly Babble says it's okay to take non-Jewish children as slaves, but it also says that human beings are precious, so that makes it okay."
I just love reading the rationalizations and excuses you Christians come with; who in their right mind would turn down free entertainment?
Slavery is one of the most demeaning, horrific institutions in the history of mankind, which is exactly what I'd expect from a Stone-Age God; deal fairly within the tribe, and subjugate the rest.
Your statement, trae, is remarkably similar to Southerners who claimed that slavery in the South wasn't bad because they treated the slaves well. That doesn't make it right.
A god who ordains slavery is evil; period. Thus, the Christian concept of a perfect god is bullshit and a lie; unless, of course, you want to continue Slavery Apologetics.
Yeah? Funny you should bring up the whole "god warned them" argument; cause he sure as hell did NOT warn Mankind of the Great Flood; he didn't warn Ai; and even if he did, that doesn't justify genocide; what, pray tell, did the children and animals in these cities do to warrant their destruction?
It wasn't; but that doesn't make my point any less valid. Destroying the altars, idols, pillars, etc., is disrespectful and wrong; the concept of religious freedom is not biblical in either nature or origin.
Right, because punishing children for the crimes of their parents is "loving"; butchering innocent children and animals is "loving"; making women into chattels is "loving"; you Christians have a very warped definition of the word "love". By the way, just what is this "new role" of the O.T. that you speak of? Are you implying that Christians are not obligated to follow the law anymore?
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