The headlines are filled with stuff like Atheists Outdo Some Believers (NY Times) or Atheists and Agnostics Know More About the Bible than Religious (National Public Radio).
But not so fast! It turns out that Atheists didn't really win, it was more like Christians lost. The atheist/agnostic category got the best score at 20.9 out of 32 questions. But look at how it really went down:
| Atheist/Agnostic | 20.9 |
| Jewish | 20.5 |
| Mormon | 20.3 |
| White Evangelical Protestant | 17.6 |
| White Catholic | 16.0 |
| White mainline Protestant | 15.8 |
| Nothing in Particular | 15.2 |
| Black Protestant | 13.4 |
| Hispanic Catholic | 11.6 |
I have a couple of theories myself. One is that it's merely a coincidence, a correlation rather than a causal relationship. Jews, Mormons and Atheists are better educated than the average American; in fact, religion goes down dramatically with higher education. It shouldn't be a surprise that well educated people know more than less educated people, even about the Bible. The fact that Jews, Atheists and Mormons know more is perhaps predictable.
But another possibility is that this is an example of the Anti-Rationalism Meme hard at work. When faith and reason collide, the Abrahamic religions claim that faith wins. Since education is the foundation of reason and rational thinking, it's natural that the more fundamental versions of Christianity are not big advocates of higher education.
Ironically, this leads to the rather embarrassing situation where Atheists, Agnostics and Jews know more about Christianity than Christians do!
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The study was on religious knowledge, not biblical knowledge.
ReplyDeleteYeah, this is a no brainer to us but I know to many people this is a shocker.
ReplyDeletehttp://scienceandsaviors.blogspot.com/
if folks would read that Bible instead of just hitting other people over the head with it, they might know what it actually says...
ReplyDeleteMormons are actually Christians, too. We are only pegged as not being Christians because we believe that the Trinity are three separate persons with one purpose; instead of three persons in one substance. But we do, in fact, worship Christ as our Savior and we believe the Book of Mormon is a witness of Christ's personal ministry in America just as the Bible is a witness of Christ's personal ministry in Jerusalem. We teach from both books in our worship services. It is the power of the duplicate witness that we believe "proves" Christianity.
ReplyDeleteAnd although I appreciate the assumption that Mormons are, in general, better educated, I would not necessarily agree that most Mormons are. We teach constantly that higher education is ideal, but we are still a very diverse Church that spreads through every single class and race, including a vast number of 3rd World countries.
However, we do have 3 hour church service and we do spend a great deal of this time educating our people about the history of religion, the Bible, and the various doctrines of Christianity, which may explain why we did better than most Christian groups.
I must add, too, that I don't intend for this comment to be argumentative. On the contrary, I have known many Atheists whom I respect for their willingness to ask questions and find answers. In fact, I often tell people that if I were not a Mormon, I would belong to no religion at all simply because none of them make any logical sense to me. Mormonism does make complete and absolute logical sense to me, but you are right that it didn't get to that point without the use of faith in the interim of doubts and questions.