Atheists, agnostics most knowledgeable about religion, survey says

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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.”

A majority of Protestants, for instance, couldn’t identify Martin Luther as the driving force behind the Protestant Reformation, according to the survey, released Tuesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. Four in 10 Catholics misunderstood the meaning of their church’s central ritual, incorrectly saying that the bread and wine used in Holy Communion are intended to merely symbolize the body and blood of Christ, not actually become them.

latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-religion-survey-20100928,0,6399694,print.story
 
Apparently not or they wouldn’t be Athiests and Agnostics!

Knowing how a plane flies doesn’t make a person a pilot.
 
Bob_Aliano said:
Apparently not or they wouldn’t be Athiests and Agnostics!

Knowing how a plane flies doesn’t make a person a pilot.
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I had a similar thought. If one thinks they know religion, yet rejects God, than how well do they really know religion? It is easy to remember some facts or talking points.
 
It’s because most people are born into their religion and only follow it because they grew up with it. They really don’t care either way.

That’s why, on average, converts to any given religion are more knowledgeable and devout than people born into any given religion.
 
dnar said:
Forty-five percent of Roman Catholics who participated in the study didn’t know that, according to church teaching, the bread and wine used in Holy Communion is not just a symbol, but becomes the body and blood of Christ.

foxnews.com/us/2010/09/28/survey-americans-know-little-religion/?test=latestnews

This is extremely sad.
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Yep. The Church’s fault. All I hear about is love and social justice from the pulpits. It’s getting me sick every Mass knowing full well the priest should be teaching about the sacraments and hell.
 
jay29 said:
Yep. The Church’s fault. All I hear about is love and social justice from the pulpits. It’s getting me sick every Mass knowing full well the priest should be teaching about the sacraments and hell.
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I don’t know if they should be teaching about Hell in their homilies. It would encourage people to serve God out of fear of Hell instead of out of pure love for Him. They should talk more about why we should love God.

I agree with you about the sacraments, however.
 
MarianD said:
I don’t know if they should be teaching about Hell in their homilies. It would encourage people to serve God out of fear of Hell instead of out of pure love for Him. They should talk more about why we should love God.

I agree with you about the sacraments, however.
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It would be nice if they AT LEAST mentioned it once a year…
 
Martin Luther as the driving force behind the Protestant Reformation
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Jan Hus and John Wycliffe set the foundation for the reformation and Huldrych Zwingli and Martin Luther’s simultaneous and independant rejection of the Church is what drove the reformation.

To say Luther alone was significant overlooks the fact he was significantly less confrontational than Zwingli, noteably only burning Exsurge Domine after Zwingli had started his radical anti-church preaching.

To place any individual as the “driving force” behind the reformation overlooks the counless individuals who through simultaneous and systematic heresy broke from the church. Had there been only one significant individual; there would have doubtless been no reformation; the stage set by the political and religious tensions at the time; coupled with simultaneous rebellions is what caused the reformation; which was essentially and necessarily supported by later protestant theologians; such as Calvin and Hooker successfully carried protestantism over it’s initial trials and into more established forms.
Four in 10 Catholics **misunderstood **the meaning of their church’s central ritual, incorrectly saying that the bread and wine used in Holy Communion are intended to merely symbolize the body and blood of Christ, not actually become them.
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There is no reason to presuppose that they misunderstood it; they might just be heretics.
 
jay29 said:
Yep. The Church’s fault. All I hear about is love and social justice from the pulpits. It’s getting me sick every Mass knowing full well the priest should be teaching about the sacraments and hell.
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I agree with you totally. From a Southern Baptist convert to Catholicism the messages sure are different I can tell you that. The Southern Baptists hit on hell every Sunday, while the Catholic Church hardly ever mentions it. If I remember correctly Jesus talked about hell alot more than he ever did heaven.
 
MarianD said:
It would encourage people to serve God out of fear of Hell instead of out of pure love for Him. They should talk more about why we should love God.
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Fear of hell does come a close second to love. Hell should be mentioned much more than it is. Especially those acts that cause people to go there.
 
Interestingly, while Atheists and Agnostics are top of the list, those that are “unaffiliated with any faith” are in the middle, or around average. This makes me think that maybe many nonreligious people in fact don’t call themselves Atheists or Agnostics until they have thought it through, even if they don’t believe in God. This means that the conclusion I would draw isn’t really about religious people being less knowledgeable about religion, but the terms that less-knowledgeable nonbelievers use to refer to themselves.

On a side note, my wife works on a reception desk in a hospital, and has to ask new patients their religion. All Muslims or Hindus will reply straight away. Some Christians reply with their denomination straight away, but many people hesitate for a moment, screw up their face and say “Put Church of England”. Very few people want to describe themselves as an atheist.
 
I enjoy the Fathers of Mercy. They speak of not only why we should love God, but they also focus on those much misunderstood or rejected sacraments of Confession and Eucharist. They go out directly to those who are lost and try to lead them back or even to the Church. If more diocesan priests would do that (I am blessed to have a priest who tries to do so) the Church would no be in the poor state she is in now.
 
MarianD said:
I don’t know if they should be teaching about Hell in their homilies. It would encourage people to serve God out of fear of Hell instead of out of pure love for Him. They should talk more about why we should love God.

I agree with you about the sacraments, however.
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Fear gets a bad reputation today…it is a very strong motivator.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom.
 
from the LA Times article said:
“I think that what happens for many Christians is, they accept their particular faith, they accept it to be true and they stop examining it. Consequently, because it’s already accepted to be true, they don’t examine other people’s faiths. … That, I think, is not healthy for a person of any faith,” he said.
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I agree with this. I did come to a point in my life where I accepted my Catholic faith as true. However, to this day I continually examine and challenge the faith that I have accepted as true. It has been a wonderful journey - warts and all! 🙂
from the LA Times article:
The question that elicited the most correct responses concerned whether public school teachers are allowed to lead their classes in prayer. Eighty-nine percent of the respondents correctly said no. However, 67% also said that such teachers are not permitted to read from the Bible as an example of literature, something the law clearly allows.
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At least we know that most people understand that teacher-led prayer is forbidden in the classroom. 😦 I do feel however that allowing the Bible in the classroom being answered incorrectly is an indication that the “clear” law of allowing it isn’t so clear to the general public. :rolleyes:
 
MarianD said:
I don’t know if they should be teaching about Hell in their homilies. It would encourage people to serve God out of fear of Hell instead of out of pure love for Him. They should talk more about why we should love God.

I agree with you about the sacraments, however.
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I think it’s a mistake not to. I think a lack of teaching on hell breeds lazy and ungrateful Christians. Christians that don’t care enough to find out about their faith because Jesus is their buddy and will forgive them if they sin- even if they sin purposely. I am not trying to degrade God’s mercy in any way shape or form, but some people need to be scared in order to wake up, and others need to be reminded what Jesus saved them from, at the very dear cost of his own life. Hell can be a great source of learning to appreciate God and Jesus’ sacrifice. Subsequently, preaching on hell should be well balanced with teaching on God’s mercy. They’re two sides of the same coin I think, God’s Justice and His Mercy, you need the one to give meaning to the other.

Also, I’m not really surprised that atheists know more about religion than the faithful. There are very few people in life that haven’t wondered about this ‘God fellow’. If you don’t have the knowledge that faith brings, of course you’re gonna have to go looking for it on your own.

It is surprising that almost half of Catholics don’t know/believe in the central rite of the Mass though.
 
I don’t think it’s all that necessary to be knowledgable about the history of religion, the “historical” Jesus, Paul, etc. It’s much more important to have sincere faith in the Lord. Sometimes too much knowledge can lead people away from true trusting faith. What did Jesus say about the little children?
 
CHRISTINE77 said:
I don’t think it’s all that necessary to be knowledgable about the history of religion, the “historical” Jesus, Paul, etc. It’s much more important to have sincere faith in the Lord. Sometimes too much knowledge can lead people away from true trusting faith. What did Jesus say about the little children?
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I think that the result of relying on blind, uninformed faith is apparent: too many people fall away from their faith and many of those who have a religious awakening as adults leave the Church to become evangelical protestants, Buddhists, New Agers, etc. Although I wouldn’t focus on hell, I agree with others that there is a great need for our priests to use the weekend liturgies as an opportunity to evangelize and catechize. I’ve attended a lot of Protestant services over the years, and the level of preaching and teaching is heads and shoulders over what I’ve experienced in most Catholic churches. If Catholic priests were hired and fired on the basis of their preaching, as is true in most Protestant churches, we’d be enjoying far better sermons, and Catholics would be far better informed about Christian faith.
 
Alan55 said:
I think that the result of relying on blind, uninformed faith is apparent: too many people fall away from their faith and many of those who have a religious awakening as adults leave the Church to become evangelical protestants, Buddhists, New Agers, etc. Although I wouldn’t focus on hell, I agree with others that there is a great need for our priests to use the weekend liturgies as an opportunity to evangelize and catechize. I’ve attended a lot of Protestant services over the years, and the level of preaching and teaching is heads and shoulders over what I’ve experienced in most Catholic churches. If Catholic priests were hired and fired on the basis of their preaching, as is true in most Protestant churches, we’d be enjoying far better sermons, and Catholics would be far better informed about Christian faith.
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Our parents and grandparents were NOT Bible scholars…few ever read the Bible as a form of study, yet they had great faith. People have allowed themselves to be pulled from their faith by the culture, nothing new there.

The simple truth is atheists do NOT know the faith, if they did, they would NOT be atheists…holding facts in which to have an argument is not the same as knowing the faith. I have had many debates with atheists who think they know better, they nearly always get the passages wrong and waaay out of context when they quote from the Bible, and they know things like Transubstantiation merely to “laugh” at people who believe in the Real Presence. They do not take the time to explore the reasons why, or to put pieces together the way they actually fit. On the other side, there are many millions who may not know all the facts, but they sure have a deep love for Christ.

Faith is what matters the most in this situation, atheists cannot see that, people who believe do. So, the atheists are missing the single largest element, for without faith it is IMPOSSIBLE to please God. 🙂

(btw, for the record I do not believe the survey…most atheists I have run into learn Bible passages just to argue…they were not formally trained or taught. Of course a small percentage were, but most were never “given” the gift of faith and simply fell into atheism)
 
irishpatrick said:
I had a similar thought. If one thinks they know religion, yet rejects God, than how well do they really know religion? It is easy to remember some facts or talking points.
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This is an interesting discussion. There is a difference between knowing about religion and accepting any particular religion. Accepting a religion on faith does not necessarily bring knowledge about the religion, which is a far different thing. Many Catholics are woefully ignorant of church history. Ask some about the Council of Trent, when the doctrine of Papal Infallibility was adopted, or the role of Emperor Constantine, for example, and you will draw a lot of blank looks.
 
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