As I was searching for something worthwhile to spend my evening watching, I came across a PBS special. God in America. Interesting. So as I was checking out the website, I discovered a quiz on religion. I took it, and the results deeply bother me. On a basic quiz of knowledge of the major religions in the US, the average American missed HALF! And the worst part, Atheists and Agnostics scored the best, barely beating Jewish and Mormon respondents.
The biggest problem I saw was not that Evangelical Protestants,which includes a wide variety of people with varying levels of commitment to said religion, know the most about Christianity (but still got the pants beat off them by the Mormons). My biggest problem is that only 23% of all Americans, regardless of religious affiliation, know that a public school teacher can have the Bible read in class as literature. Well for heaven's sake why not! We can, and usually do, bring in examples from the Qu'ran and other religious texts! If we are to have true religious freedom, we must allow it. To allow the others and NOT the Bible is religious discrimination. Equal time is not required, as different classes may have different foci.
I did look further at the group's work and some of the questions could lead to errors in the response. Some were a bit too vague or leading. And then on a few questions, you would certainly run the risk of the respondent not wanting to sound "bigoted." Since we bandy that word around so much.
To check the percent per group answering correctly: http://features.pewforum.org/quiz/us-religious-knowledge/?q=16
For the Official summary:http://pewforum.org/Other-Beliefs-and-Practices/U-S-Religious-Knowledge-Survey.aspx?src=rkq-sidebar-b
No comments:
Post a Comment