A new Pew survey indicates that if you want to know something about religion, ask an agnostic or atheists. The survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found atheist and agnostic Americans fare more knowledgeable about religion than their religious neighbors.
For example, the majority of Protestants did not know that Martin Luther started the Protestant Reformation and four out of 10 Catholics were clueless on the meaning of transubstantiation.
Alan Cooperman, the forum’s associate director for research, is quoted as saying that agnostics and atheists have simply given such matters more study and thought: “These are people who thought a lot about religion. They’re not indifferent. They care about it.”
Source: Telegraph
ShireNomad
Good going! I missed the enlightenment guy, and had just read about that not too long ago, too!
Gyges
I don’t know much about Mormonism except they are pretty far removed from mainline Christianity as far as membership qualifications go. I agree with your view that they are a subset – which is why they were tested separately as were the fundamentalists.
If the “youngest adult male” (or then “youngest adult female”) was limited to those you list as tending to have higher levels of education, it would make more sense. When applied to the general population, though, it seems to me the data would be skewed.
But I didn’t design the test. And I’m a member of a church that is grounded in educating their parishoners rather than trying to fit everyone into the same mold which may have affected my score.
Buckeye,
Not to get into a debate about what Scotsmen eat with their oats, but Mormonism is considered a subset of Christianity.
My guess is the “youngest adult male” is part of a control for education (Jewish people and atheists/agnostics tend to achieve higher levels of education than their counterparts).
Hi Buckeye! I’m in the same boat. Could have sworn I was saved, but then I scored 100% on the test.
Deist here.
You can’t have a fight unless you get to pick the teams and skim, er, tithe them for the pleasure of being told they’re “special” and have the God’s Cell Number. If there is a Divine Master then that Master must surely have his Favorites to love and the Others to punish. That an invisible, unprovable being beyond the rules of physics has taken personal interest in them. By the way, there are rules and an admission fee. Oh . . . and if you break the rules – no matter how illogical or insane they may be – you’re going to Hell of some sort and experience ostracism from your community of choice awaits you here on the Earthly plane.
The pertinent yet only metaphorically magic words in the preceding paragraph were: tithe, special, other, favorites, invisible, unprovable, rules, Hell, ostracism, illogical and insane.
Silly RabbiImamClericOracleMonkShamanPriest!
Tricks are for kids.
In my experience a great many people join a church because they are looking for a place to feel “important” and “special”. Priests and Ministers are very good at spotting these individuals, fawning over them and then taking them for either as much of their disposable income or time as possible.
What we find in religion is the same sort of con we find in any other special interest group … “gosh, I’m special” and “boy, I’m really important now”.
The perfect indicator of the con is that the “special” ones don’t let just anyone in for in order to feel special and important it is always necessary to designate someone who is not.
I’ve discovered I must be an atheist, agnostic, or Mormon based on my score on the test. I could have sworn I was a Christian!
Will have to check with Nate Silver on the polling methodology. Over sampling Jews, Mormons, atheists and agnostics may be OK, but asking for the youngest adult male or if none is available, the youngest adult female seems to me a situation that might lead to a skewed result. You scientists can set me straight.
I guess its safe for me to go back home, now. I know my forefathers and mothers were stoned to death in Gaul around the 1st BCE and finally escaped to the isle of britanny. Thence came the remainders and found solace in many comforts around the earth. Now I be, beneath the tree where one day I will be.
Agnostic does NOT mean undecided. Agnosticism is a truth statement about whether one can have direct knowledge of a spiritual existence. Tom Huxley argued that the existence of a diety is unknowable.
A theist can and most likely is agnostic. In fact, I have never met one who is not.
Hey, all you Druids that live on the other side of the pond, I’ve got good news for you:
Druids Recognized As Religion For First Time In U.K. (Huffington Post)
SYLVIA HUI | 10/ 2/10
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/03/uk-druids-religion-recognized-for-first-time_n_748369.html
Excerpt:
LONDON — Druids have been worshipping the sun and earth for thousands of years in Europe, but now they can say they’re practicing an officially recognized religion.
The ancient pagan tradition best known for gatherings at Stonehenge every summer solstice has been formally classed as a religion under charity law for the first time in Britain, the national charity regulator said Saturday. That means Druids can receive exemptions from taxes on donations – and now have the same status as such mainstream religions as the Church of England.
A big Amen to Brother Mesppo’s words about true believers. Why is it that many religious fanatics are clueless about their own “religion” and the radical right is clueless about what really went on during the Bush Administration? Especially when you ask them when did the recession start?!
[religious by inertia]
Marx said that religion was baggage from dead ancestors that the living still lugged around.
In “Why I Am Not A Christian” Bertrand Russell concluded that the main reason that people were Christian is because… their parents were.
Most Americans are religious by inertia, not some research-based analysis or desire for higher spirituality. Talk to the Church goers and they have the same concerns, questions, and disdains that I do. They just feel culturally accepted going to Church. Are they true believers? No, not really, just comfortable comformists who provide a base for the rlegious crazies out there who garner the press and create all the problems.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jdtLTIzZWo&fs=1&hl=en_US]
You also better hang onto your wallet when you hear the words: “bipartisan agreement” for that can only mean the 2 party kleptocracy that runs the USA is about to bamboozle working people again.
Actually it’s a 1 party kleptocracy with 2 factions squabbling over the best way to screw over the American people.
Watch you wallet when someone tells you they are a Christian Businessman…..
I have said that I would trust a known atheist over a self proclaimed christian any day of the week…with the Atheist…well you can believe that they are a person of their word….lol
Logic ?:
My experience is that most Americans claim to be religious but they are not particularly spiritual in the way they live life daily and most know almost nothing but the most superficial aspects of the history and tenets of their faith.
Of course. It takes some brain activity to figure out that when the bible says: “God created man in his own image” that the exact opposite is true.
Faith doesn’t require much brain activity. As Amrose Bierce’s “Devils Dictionary” defined faith: “Belief without evidence, by people without knowledge, in things without parallel.”