Got a question about religion -- ask an atheist or agnostic first

[RgrF]

In a Pew Research Center study released today it is revealed that atheists and agnostics are among the most knowledgeable on religious matters, even more so than the members of that very religion. In a country where six-in-ten adults say that religion is “very important”, these results come as a shock to the nation’s faithful. wrote:

from a Texan no less

[Grace62]

Unless your question is about Christianity or the Bible, then it seems your best bet is to ask a white Evangelical.

As for the poor knowledge of other religions and cultures, doesn't that speak more to the woeful state of education in our country? How much time is spent on the world's great religions? Not much. How much disinformation is out there about the separation of church and state and about the role of religion in public life? Lots.

A surprising number of people think that teachers can't use the Bible or other religious texts in class as examples of literature. They can, and really they should. You can't understand Shakespeare or many other great writers if you don't know anything about the major stories and themes of the Bible. Same for other religions and the literature of their cultures. Those texts need to be studied in the context of history, literature and social movements.
Too bad we have too many narrow minds on both sides who can't see this.

[the_poochies]

Perhaps if public schools offered a course on comparative religions of the world, we wouldn't have all of this inflammatory misinformation from the right about Islam, buddhism, etc. and misinformation from the left on Christianity.

You can take a short survey at the NY Times. I scored 100%. Sixteen years of Catholic school finally paid off...whoo hoo!!!

[OWC Jamie]

they should have polled some iranians

[btfc]

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/...-quiz.html

[$tevie]

I got 5/6. I guessed wrong about Indonesia -- and it was just a guess, I had no idea.

[cbelt3]

Not a surprise. Anyone who identifies closely with one religion will tend to only know about that religion. And will have the weirdest damn ideas about other religions.

Of course, comparative religion study in my Catholic school was in depth and scholarly. We read widely, and were encouraged to seek out and attend other religious services, and learn the underlying common elements of ALL of the world's great religions, to wit:

Do what I say, so you ca Be excellent to each other.

[Seacrest]

6/6

[RgrF]

5/6 -- I'm not up on the Old Testament besides that I thought having a Job was a Dakota issue.

[hal]

I got 6/6 and I was the one that thought Jesus was a woman when I was little... absolutely ZERO religious training (except mom corrected me on the jesus thing)