Pew's preposterous pop quiz

Secular said: "Whither away the vile [religious] texts, and meet your cousins the tomes of AlChemistry, & Astrology on the dust heap of history."

You raise another interesting point about the survey. No questions were asked about Mithra, Aten, Odin, Zeus, Huitzilopochtli etc. They are no longer religious figures--they are mythological figures. The only difference between them and Jehovah, God, Buddha, Allah, Brahman etc. is that the latter have living believers. The newspaper on the nearby military base lists a pagan among the chaplains available for counseling to members of the force. I hope we don't see mythological figures returned to the realm of religion rather than current religious figures relegated to the realm of mythology.

Has anyone else noticed that the snobbish, elitist, holier than thou, superiority outlook of some is not limited to whether or not they have a belief in God.

Some might say that this is part of human nature, some may even say that it is the germ of all warfare, whether on a global scale or individual scale, whereas others say that the germ of warfare is attributable to something that is not in them but is most definitely in others.

By the way, I only saw the five or so sample questions of the aforementioned survey and I think that that survey was a total joke.

For one thing, they called it a religious survey and, at least from the sample, it had very little to do with religion and/or beliefs.

Of course modern man sure does like to quantify things and to extrapolate their own preconceived notions from the data quite often.

Surveys and statistics, have you ever noticed how the same survey and the same set of statistics can be interpreted in completely juxtaposed conclusions.

This is not something that only the politicians are good at.

See you all in the Kingdom.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

"With a little more deliberation in the choice of their pursuits, all men would perhaps become essentially students and observers, for certainly their nature and destiny are interesting to all alike. In accumulating property for ourselves or our posterity, in founding a family or a state, or acquiring fame even, we are mortal; but in dealing with truth we are immortal, and need fear no change nor accident. The oldest Egyptian or Hindoo philosopher raised a corner of the veil from the statue of the divinity; and still the trembling robe remains raised, and I gaze upon as fresh a glory as he did, since it was I in him that was then so bold, and it is he in me that now reviews the vision. No dust has settled on that robe; no time has elapsed since that divinity was revealed. That time which we really improve, or which is improvable, is neither past, present, nor future."

Thoreau

Thank you MaryC4, for validating my thesis that this pew survey actually has a silver lining to it. If fewer people learn about these totally less than worthless texts, then fewer and fewer will make them their guiding lights. Which would mean we will have finally gotten rid of the albatross that has been hanging around the humanity's neck for over 5000 years. Whither away the vile texts, and meet your cousins the tomes of AlChemistry, & Astrology on the dust heap of history.

It seems fairly predictable that while most Americans are raised in a religious faith, atheists and agnostics will be more knowledgeable about religion in general. They rejected their birth religion and probably studied other faiths before deciding they were atheists or agnostics.

My own children were raised as atheists, and I have no doubt would score as poorly as any of the evangelicals or Catholics did on the Pew survey. We told them we don't care if they join any religion as long as they remain compassionate and reasonable human beings. So far I have seen no inclination in them to find a "faith" to occupy their thoughts and put a claim on their wallets. Maybe if you're raised without a "God," you aren't left with a feeling that something is missing if you don't have religion.

I hope I am around in 20 years to hear the results of a similar survey. Those surveyed will be the offspring of vaguely "spiritual" Americans who don't know or care to know any of the actual theological tenets of the faiths they profess to follow. Will this result in a generation of people focused intensely on the divisive aspects of religion, or a generation even less relgious than their parents? I am inclined to think America will go the way of Europe, and become less relgious, but America has enough differences that it might be more complicated.

Transubstantiation is the Roman transit system. You go into the train as a human and you come out as communion wafers.

Yes, JIHADIST, god is great. I'm sure god would have a perfect score on the quiz.

Peace and love.

Catholic Atheists scored better than the other atheists. We're better than the rest of you.

*******************************************

:)

Catholic atheists? Like Jewish atheists? Or, is it cultural Catholics or secular Catholics like cultural and secular Jews?
I've heard of cultural or secular Muslims, but I've always thought that they are a contradiction.

And certainly Muslims will do badly on the Pew pop quiz on religions and religious knowledge trivia pursuit.

I've never heard or nor know what Transubtantiation is. First time I saw that word, I thought it has something to do with the mass transit system and subway stations.

My excuse - God is Allknowing, but I'm not.

Catholic Atheists scored better than the other atheists. We're better than the rest of you.

Jacques,

I sympathize; every time I weigh myself, and it shows that I weight more than I should, I get angry at the scale.

Of course what the study points out is the relative shallowness of American though whether on their oh so important religion, their precious Constitution rights of freedoms and liberty, or just the basic nutritional facts of their food! Few Catholics consider themselves to be cannibals when they eat the "real " flesh of their God and drink his "real" blood! No Evangelical is deterred by the 10,000 years of recorded Chinese and Indian history, much less the Billions of years revealed by scientific research when accepting their interpreted day of creation! And apparently few Muslims don't believe Mohammad rode his horse to heaven and if martyred they will not be in some place with 40 endlessly virgin women for their personal pleasure! The Jews think their God gave them some sort of perpetual ownership of some land in the Middle East and that they are granted the right to murder anyone who stands in their way of reclaiming the lands abandoned centuries ago! Ignorance is a powerful force which happily leads the species to self annihilation!

At the first reading of the article I was persuaded by Jacques Berlinerblau that the survey was superfluous. It is indeed superfluous, even when I first saw it and took it. On the other hand what can you expect in a multi-choice survey like this. There is an upper bound to number of question that can be asked and the format cannot be a set of open ended question requiring thoughtful answers. Which also brings in far too many subjective criteria into play on part of the evaluators. that is why it is called a survey not a study. It may not be a big feather in the atheist cap, but most certainly it a big egg, perhaps an Ostrich egg, on the theist's face.

I do take a strong issue with Jacques Berlinerblau, contention that knowledge of religions is really needed of the secular. Not every run of the mill secular is sitting there in those halls of congress or white house shaping the policy. It undoubtedly is helpful for those in the policy making arena to be knowledgeable in several areas of non-knowledge - like religion, astrology, etc, along with areas of knowledge, such History, Geography, Sciences, Mathematics. For the common man making a living as an engineer, chemist, truck driver, or what have you knowledge of religion adds nothing to his repertoire of tools he needs to earn his living or living her life. I don't attach much value to the understanding the concept of transubstantiation. Does it really matter to know the difference between that and the concept of an haunted house. Both are patently unadulterated horse manure, whether one is more of olive drab as opposed to just plain dark brown is of no consequence. The little we know of religion better it is to banish it to teh dust heap of history.

One last thing the author writes in the end parenthetically "The author wishes to thank Mr. Sam Dinger for invaluable research assistance and evaluation of PEW's data". Is wishing same as action in the US. I know, I am being very anal retentive here. This seems to be universal in the US to say "Wish to thank" than just saying "thanks". I do not understand it's ubiquity.

While the questions that were asked were trivial, shouldn't that mean that they would be at least moderately easier to answer. I would, as an agnostic (who you once again denigrated by saying you'd leave us til later... and then ignoring a whole side of the non-faith community) say that while a practicing Catholic or Evangelical Protestant is certainly more aware of the various specifics of their faiths than someone who has taken a passing interest in it from the outside, the very absolutist nature of religion itself makes them less likely to honestly investigate or attempt to understand other faiths. If your deity is the only true deity, why would you place sufficient value on someone else's faith to look into it if it is inherently wrong. With a mind closed to the possibilities of other faiths because of the depth of your own attachment to your own, it takes a remarkable amount of honesty to look outside and attempt to understand something. My biggest problem with the survey is that it, like most commentators (yourself included) lump agnostics and atheists together. As a person who does not deny the possibility of the existence of a higher power, but merely (in my mind anyways) seeks to understand how to interact with that possibility and how it may interact with the world, I find it personally insulting to be lumped in with atheists who have made their decision about the question which I believe I will spend the rest of my life trying to answer. I despise the assumption that because I question something and am looking for a way to personally understand it, I deny it's existence. I take great pains in my life to respect the religious views of those around me, even if i disagree with them, as long as they are not harmful to others. I sincerely wish that Pew, the pundits, and supposed experts like yourself would show the same courtesy.

If you tell a religiously dogmatic atheist that you are a member of a certain "Christian" church, he will tell you what you are supposed to believe.

Many atheists are anti-christs (I spell that with a small "c" because Jesus predicted that ...there would be lots of them in the future.

I used to belong to a Two-Spirit (Gay Native American) Men's Support Group which was sponsored by the Tulsa Indian Health Care Resource Center's Behavioral Health Department.

One time we views a PBS-TV video, "SPIRIT: a journey in dance, drums and song," which was conceived and composed by Peter Buffett.

In the program, a person has a spiritual encounter with the creator (and this was before the days when things were written down).

After the program was over, I mentioned how Abraham had a similar encounter. One of the guys in attendance that night got very angry because (he thought) I brought up "Christianity."

I told him that I didn't say one thing about Christianity; the story of Abraham is in the Old Testament. Abraham wasn't a "Christian."

Face it, atheists first and foremost, reject the obvious notion that some man made book is some great revelation of some mythical God that can be used to create a code of behavior to reap some Godly reward! On the other hand, such books often make great reading, can be quite entertaining, include some pearls of wisdom that can enrich a persons life, and provide some historical insight into ancient cultures.

The universal problems arise when these hoary books are used as manuals for how Man must live today! It occurs when priests and politicians use these books to control behavior, when the books are used for extortion, racketeering, propaganda, and immoral inhumane actions! These books have been used to justify the most inhumane acts of men and continue to be misused today! These books must be demystified and relegated to historical novels!

Thank you, "On Faith"; and most of all, thank you, Jacques Berlinerblau. I was already having bad feelings about that survey and its results. Berlinerblau articulates this and much more.

I wonder: Is it possible for any organization to formulate a survey that acurately, fairly, and comprehensively measure our knowledge of religion? And at higher cognitive levels than mere facts?

Even if it can be done, it would take much longer to fill out than the Pew Forum survey. Few of us can spare the time, which would surely skew the results.

And evaluating the results would be a real can of worms. No, better make that a whole barrel!

I don't think you quite get it. These questions are on fundamental points of theology. People have *died* because of the doctrine of Transubstantiation, and the fact that a majority of Catholics surveyed didn't know that is shameful. To complain that those questions were just of "Jeopardy" quality is really disingenuous. Do you just want people to parrot 'God is love' in church, and then vote against gay rights because a priest tells them? People need to know what is in their religions, and the fact that atheists come out of religions should be disturbing. The fact that atheists tested well on this test means they not only come out of those religions, it means they studied them, and found them lacking. And that the people who stayed ignored extra-curricular knowledge. Going to church doesn't teach you much of anything about the religious doctrines, and that is something to be ashamed of.