For a highly religious people, Americans have plenty of room to improve their knowledge of religion, according to a new survey that’s stirring debate about the health of faith in America.
The US Religious Knowledge Survey, released Tuesday from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, found atheists and agnostics know more basic facts about the Bible than either Protestants or Catholics. Among the other findings:
”¢ 57 percent of Protestants can name the Bible’s four gospels.
”¢ 55 percent of Catholics know their tradition teaches that sacramental bread and wine become Christ’s body and blood.
Ӣ 15 percent of white evangelicals know Jonathan Edwards participated in the First Great Awakening.
Let’s get to the root of the matter. Assuming that the Pew Foundation’s rather blunt instrument has actually demonstrated what the news items won’t come out and say, that believers are less intelligent than unbelievers*, so what?
Are unbelievers
* Happier or healthier?
* More honest?
* More loving? More loved by others?
* Do they contribute more to others, their communities, the world?
And so on. Into what context shall we put the supposed results of this study?
This may be the money quote: [blockquote]“If a person is devout, then I ought to respect that devotion and not mock it, to take it seriously. But if the knowledge base of that devotion is as shallow as it seems, then is the respect earned?â€[/blockquote]
In other words, is my disdain for the religious neanderthals legitimated by (supposed) Science?
I haven’t read the Pew study, and probably won’t. I can say that I’ve known highly intelligent people that I wouldn’t have in my home and with whom I wouldn’t willingly dine. I can’t see how these data, by themselves, have any practical use except as a stick with which to beat one’s supposed inferiors. No decent person, of whatever belief, should wish to do such a thing. This is not to say that questions of belief cannot or should not be debated, sometimes vigorously, by those so inclined. But characterizing an entire group on the basis of something like this is simply not justified.
I haven’t been around for a while, so I state for the record that I am an unbeliever.
regards,
JPB
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* It should go without saying that this is far from having been demonstrated in any intelligible, much less meaningful, way.
Well, looking at the actual scores, atheists didn’t exactly blow the test out of the water either. They scored a few percentage points higher, but if it was graded on the curve, Christians would have passed as well.
It seemed to me that very little of this test actually had to do with the Bible, so before one could say that atheists, etc. knew more about the Bible then Christians, they would need to produce the comparisons for the handful of questions that dealt with the Bible.
I took the test and got 100%, though in all honesty I would probably have gotten 1 wrong had I not read a story about the quiz earlier. I really think that the test was simple enough that none of the groups should be proud of their scores.
Ho hum. What is new or surprising in this, that Americans know little about religion? We regularly get polls showing that Americans know little about geography, history, math, literature. How can we not conclude that Americans have been taught very little about matters of substance – or have not bothered to learn them, whilst still graduating from high school and college. But didn’t we know this already? This is just another such poll, and tels us nothing new. Larry
I’m with Steve. The test was such a simple one that I think all groups come out looking shamefully ignorant. The questions were ones any decently educated person, believer or not, should reasonably be expected to know. The would be $50.00 questions on “Cash Cab.”
JPB, I don’t think the point of the report is that believers are less intelligent than non-believers, just that (on the whole) they are less educated about the tenets and histories of the world’s major religions, including their own.
I got 15/15 before reading the article and the questions are pretty basic, although the Jonathan Edwards one may be slightly obscure in the 21st century. Thank you to my 9th grade English teacher who made us read “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.”
Scott K is right. And frankly, I think it should disturb us when people who claim to be very religious don’t actually know much about their religion.
FYI, the complete survey is available [url=http://www.pewforum.org/uploadedFiles/Topics/Belief_and_Practices/religious-knowledge-questionnaire.pdf]here[/url].
There was a question about whether a teacher can lead a class in prayer. I don’t think that issue is settled uniformly throughout the land. I am pretty sure that one can give a Gene Robinson type prayer in all the states: “O God or goddess or supreme being or deities or ancestors or Gaia or whatever, guide us (or not)…” I know in Texas, there are definitely coaches leading students in prayer.
43% of protestants can’t name the four Gospels. Really bad.