Wednesday, September 29, 2010

From NY Daily News

Americans don't know much about religion, especially their own ones, new study finds

Tuesday, September 28th 2010, 12:46 PM
A study shows that less than half of Americans know the Dalai Lama 
is Buddhist.
Handschuh/News

A study shows that less than half of Americans know the Dalai Lama is Buddhist.

Holy cow, Americans are ignorant about their own religions.

In a new survey released Tuesday, more than 50% of Protestants asked did not know that Martin Luther sparked the Reformation, according to the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

Additionally, 45% of Roman Catholics did not know that the bread and wine used in Communion is meant to become the body and blood of Jesus Christ.

Just four in 10 Jewish people know that the great rabbi Maimonides, was Jewish himself.

Overall, atheists and agnostics posted the highest scores, with an average of 21 correct answers in the 32-question test.

Jews and Mormons each averaged 20 correct answers. Protestants and Catholics finished in the bottom with 16 and 15 correct answers, respectively.

Also revealed in the study is that less than half of Americans know the Dalai Lama is Buddhist. Even less know that Vishnu and Shiva are Hindu gods.

Click here to take the test.

By-the-way, I scored 100% and I'm an atheist.

3 comments:

mythopolis said...

I know the Bible very well. The first baseball game was in Genesis. In the big inning, god created the heavens and the earth. But, my favorite story was how David, with just a few stones, killed the giant, Godzilla.

Dee Newman said...

I'm laughing, hysterically!

mythopolis said...

From a song by Randy Newman:

(And the Lord said:) "You all must be crazy to put your faith in me. That's why I love mankind!"

God to his psychiatrist: "It's lonely at the top."
Psychiatrist: "Were you breast-fed as a baby?"
God broke down crying. "No. I'm sorry I drowned all those people. It seemed a good idea at the time."
Psychiatrist: "That's good, admitting you were wrong is the first step."

A girl was assigned to write an essay in English Composition class. It had to have three elements: Religion, Sexuality, and Mystery. She got an A+ for a simple sentence:

"Oh, God, I',m pregnant...wonder who did it?"