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Atheists, agnostics most knowledgeable about religion, survey says

By Mitchell Landsberg, Los Angeles Times

If you want to know about God, you might want to talk to an atheist.

Heresy? Perhaps. But a survey that measured Americans' knowledge of religion found that atheists and agnostics knew more, on average, than followers of most major faiths. In fact, the gaps in knowledge among some of the faithful may give new meaning to the term "blind faith."
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Atheists and agnostics -- those who believe there is no God or who aren't sure -- were more likely to answer the survey's questions correctly. Jews and Mormons ranked just below them in the survey's measurement of religious knowledge -- so close as to be statistically tied.

So why would an atheist know more about religion than a Christian?

American atheists and agnostics tend to be people who grew up in a religious tradition and consciously gave it up, often after a great deal of reflection and study, said Alan Cooperman, associate director for research at the Pew Forum.

rest is here.

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Here's the PEW survey of 15 questions about religion. Same questions used to determine the above results. Click

L.Wood wrote:.

Here's the PEW survey of 15 questions about religion. Same questions used to determine the above results. Click

DOUG
The Pew Survey used for the article had 32 questions. The linked one has just 15.

I took it and got all of them right!

I got 14/15....I didn't know who John Edwards was.

kwlyon wrote:I got 14/15....I didn't know who John Edwards was.

DOUG
Edwards was the author of the hellfire and damnation sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God."

No person of intelligence and conscience could read that essay and think that Edwards is anything but a lunatic.

Incredibly, he is still revered as a great thinker and theologian (an oxymoron!?) by fundamentalist Christians.

L.Wood wrote:Here's the PEW survey of 15 questions about religion. Same questions used to determine the above results. Click

15/15, although one was an educated guess at best. Either way, the fact only around half of these get answered correctly by the average person shows at least one of two things:
1. People are stupid. (This is my permanent standby.)
2. People rarely seek information about religions other than their own. In many cases, people don't seek much information about their own religion, either.

I got 14/15 because I thought there were more Hindus in Pakistan.

DOUG writes:
Excellent article by an atheist who engages in interfaith dialogue with believers and facilitates dialogue among believers. Included are some news items about schools that have refused to allow secular clubs to form on their campuses.

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In my work as an interfaith activist, I've fought to bring an end to religious division. Lately this has increasingly meant speaking out against the rise in anti-Muslim rhetoric and violence sweeping America. As a member of the Common Ground Campaign, I'm actively working to oppose those who wish to disenfranchise the American Muslim community.

Advocating for religious people has often put me at odds with my own community. As an atheist I hear a lot of anti-religious talk from other nonreligious people, and speaking out against it has made me somewhat of an unpopular figure among some atheists. Yet it is precisely because I am an atheist, and not in spite of it, that I am motivated to do interfaith work.

Why? For one, without religious tolerance and pluralism, I wouldn't be free to call myself an atheist without fear of retribution. Not that long ago, I could not have been a public, vocal atheist at all.

See here.