Religious Knowledge Study Has Surprising Results

Image from source, Pew Forum

I say "surprising" because it surprised some religious people. I wasn't too surprised though, after years of online discussions and personal interactions with religious people.  I'm agnostic-bordering-on-atheist, and the subject of religion comes up a lot. Especially when I mention the above.  Religious people, upon finding out my heathen status, often make it their personal mission to "witness" to me, in a vain attempt to convert me.

Oddly, I rarely approach these discussions with the intent of converting anybody to my way of thinking.  My role is usually just to explain why I believe--or rather don't believe--the way that I do.  It is roughly akin to banging my head into a wall, but I'm apparently a glutton for punishment.  But I've found in these discussions that I often--very often--know more about religion than the religious themselves do.  Oh, not chapter and verse. I was never much for memorization.  Still, I have reasons from my state of disbelief, and those reasons are based on the good book itself.  My knowledge of Hinduism, Islam and other non-Christian faiths is a little more spotty, but that's because I've rarely run into anyone from those religions trying to convert me.

The one thing that did surprise me is that a lot of Catholics don't know that transubstantiation--the conversion of the Eucharist and wine into Jesus' actual blood and flesh--is literal.  I can't say I blame them for attempting to wipe cannibalism from their minds.  Just, ewww.

[Excerpt]

U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey

Atheists and agnostics, Jews and Mormons are among the highest-scoring groups on a new survey of religious knowledge, outperforming evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants and Catholics on questions about the core teachings, history and leading figures of major world religions. . .

Read more at: The Pew Forum