America has an image of being a religious nation, as compared to many European countries, and yet the basic knowledge of religion of Americans–their own and others–is severely inferior! 🙁
A Pew Forum Research Poll demonstrated that Americans are extremely ignorant about the Bible, Christianity, other world religions, famous religious leaders, and even the issue of the Constitution and religion! 🙁
Numerous takers of a 32 question exam showed no evidence of understanding their own religion, let alone of other faiths! The questions were multiple choice, so that the correct answer was available, but it seemed to have little effect!
Ironically, atheists and agnostics showed evidence of greater knowledge of religion than anyone of any religious group! Among those who claimed a religion, Jews and Mormons, both minorities in the religious world, scored the highest, with White evangelical Protestants substantially lower, followed by White Catholic, White Mainline Protestants, Black Protestants and Hispanic Catholics!
The fact that so many people claim to be religious, and yet have no or little understanding of their faith, and often no tolerance of other religions, is indeed a very troubling issue in a country that promotes freedom of religion and separation of church and state! 🙁
Unfortunate, and incredibly true. It is rather amusing though to talk to those who consider themselves to be very religious and yet have very little historical context as to how they came to a part of the religion that they are in. Evangelicals are at times the worst, I have had far to many proclaim that Catholicism is a separate entity than Christianity, I suppose they seem it as something akin to Judaism. I think the problem lies in the Historical period in which we live, so many are so ready to believe exactly what they are told by others… Whether it is their friends, parents, pastors, or MTV, people want to be pleased instantly so the quickest explanation they receive regarding anything they may be curious about becomes their own reality.
This is not surprising at all. A lot (not saying all) of religious people are quite close-minded. They just follow their religion blindly, not questioning anything, and definitely not even bothering to learn about other religions. Most people who would consider themselves atheist or agnostic have likely taken the time to educate themselves about many different religions, so its no surprise that they are the most knowledgeable group here. It is time for people to open up their minds and start questioning things. I am not knocking religion, but this report states that a majority of people did not even know about their own religion that they just follow blindly.
“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.” -Einstein