Spiritual Pop Quiz

Americans recently learned the results of a survey the Pew Forum conducted to evaluate our religious knowledge. When it came to the questions themselves (32 in all), atheists and agnostics scored highest.

Read the survey results summary. A couple of fun facts:

• Only 71% of people knew that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. I’d have thought that would be implanted in everyone’s brain by the thousand Christmas Carols that beat us into submission every holiday. It’s not like we’re going to mistake it for Haifa.
• More than 4-in-10 didn’t understand that the rites of Communion. You know: How the bread and wine doesn’t merely symbolize, but actually becomes the body and blood of Christ. Magic crackers, people. Learn about it.

I didn’t read anything about the survey’s questions, but that was fortunate because yesterday I learned that you can take the survey yourself. The online version is a lean 15 questions, not 32. I breezed through it and got one wrong.

My little brag-graphic. That's right, I know many more god-things from a number of religion-things ranging from magic carpenters all the way to many-armed cosplay enthusiasts.

I’m an outlier; a godless heathen. But I received a lengthy education at the finest non-Catholic Christian schools. We had mandatory religion classes, Bible verses in biology textbooks, and everything. Whatever.

The results were unsurprising to a lot of people, including my wife, but not to me. I assumed a fair amount of uninformed agnosticism exists alongside all the uninformed Christianity. I don’t know why I assumed it, but there you go. Perhaps it does, but to a lesser extent. Who knows?

The Pew folks, apparently. They capture the data and the rest of us misunderstand it. It’s great; we can search through it for the bit of data that will make us feel better. What it mainly did for me was cause me to recall my religious past. I was assured that nonbelievers just didn’t understand. That’s why they don’t believe.