"I gave my daughter a bible. That's how you make an athiest," Dave Silverman, president of American Atheists, tells the New York Times. In a recent poll published by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, atheists and agnostics scored highest when it comes to religious knowledge. When it came to core beliefs and important people and places of religious history, the atheist out-scored Protestants and Catholics. On average, the survey says, Protestants correctly answered 16 of the 32 religious knowledge questions and Catholics averaged 14.7 right answers. But atheists and agnostics average 20.9 answers correctly, which was close to what Jews and Mormons got correct.
America is one of the most religious nations in the world and yet we know nothing of the religion we profess. This is more serious than knowing where the story of Daniel and the Lion's Den is found in the bible. It is about allowing Glenn Beck to be the spokesperson for evangelical Christianity when Glenn Beck himself is a self-professed Mormon. Mormons profess the belief of Joseph Smith who taught that God was a man who achieved divinity, came to earth, fathered Jesus and his brother Satan (www.lds.org).
In an era where post-modern spiritualism has muddied the waters of religous beliefs and doctrine it is difficult to know what one believes. Daniel Dennett, Philosopher at Tufts University, argues that what the poll suggests is "many of those who have thought long and hard about religions - and hence know the answers - don't actually believe the doctrines that they rightly identify as belonging to the church they are affiliated with" (www.nydailynews.com). This creates a crisis in faith for many. What are your thoughts? Why have we become a nation of the religious ignorant? Why do athiest no more about matters of religion and faith than those who profess?
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