Religious Knowledge Survey

[Nephew Twiddleton]

ETA: One of the funniest quotes I've heard in my life, I walk in to order a sub and the first thing I hear is another guy in the back shouting "Muhammad! Stop talking about donkey dick!" and I saw him motioning in response and saying "They're this big!"

I laughed too. Muhammad spun around and just said, "They really are!" I was a regular there, naturally. But it did suddenly make me feel awkward ordering a sub.

[Golden Applesauce]

I just thought of something too:
Does the survey take education level into account? Generally atheism is more prevalent in people with higher level education, so not only have they been exposed to other cultures and religions through people they went to college and grad school with (thus getting you out of whatever neighborhood you lived in in high school) but also that they may have taken a comparative religions course along the way. For example, I didn't know any non-Catholics til I got to high school and I didn't meet any Muslims until I got to college.

Except for Muhammad. But he worked at the pizza joint and talked more about missing Morocco than anything else.

ETA: One of the funniest quotes I've heard in my life, I walk in to order a sub and the first thing I hear is another guy in the back shouting "Muhammad! Stop talking about donkey dick!" and I saw him motioning in response and saying "They're this big!"

Yeah, education is the single best predictor of score on the test.  But even after taking education and demographics into account, Jews/Mormons/Atheists do better.

From the article (the one you weren't supposed to read until after the test.)

What factors seem to contribute to religious knowledge? Data from the survey indicate that educational attainment – how much schooling an individual has completed – is the single best predictor of religious knowledge. College graduates get nearly eight more questions right on average than do people with a high school education or less. Having taken a religion course in college is also strongly associated with higher religious knowledge.

Other factors linked with religious knowledge include reading Scripture at least once a week and talking about religion with friends and family. People who say they frequently talk about religion with friends and family get an average of roughly two more questions right than those who say they rarely or never discuss religion. People with the highest levels of religious commitment – those who say that they attend worship services at least once a week and that religion is very important in their lives – generally demonstrate higher levels of religious knowledge than those with medium or low religious commitment.3 Having regularly attended religious education classes or participated in a youth group as a child adds more than two questions to the average number answered correctly, compared with those who seldom or never participated in such activities. And those who attended private school score more than two questions better on average than those who attended public school when they were growing up. Interestingly, however, those who attended a private religious school score no better than those who attended a private nonreligious school.

This survey and previous Pew Forum studies have shown that Jews and atheists/agnostics have high levels of educational attainment on average, which partially explains their performance on the religious knowledge survey. However, even after controlling for levels of education and other key demographic traits (race, age, gender and region), significant differences in religious knowledge persist among adherents of various faith traditions. Atheists/agnostics, Jews and Mormons still have the highest levels of religious knowledge, followed by evangelical Protestants, then those whose religion is nothing in particular, mainline Protestants and Catholics. Atheists/agnostics and Jews stand out for high levels of knowledge about world religions other than Christianity, though they also score at or above the national average on questions about the Bible and Christianity. Holding demographic factors constant, evangelical Protestants outperform most groups (with the exceptions of Mormons and atheists/agnostics) on questions about the Bible and Christianity, but evangelicals fare less well compared with other groups on questions about world religions such as Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Judaism. Mormons are the highest-scoring group on questions about the Bible.

When education and other demographic traits are held equal, whites score better than minorities on the survey's religious knowledge questions, men score somewhat better than women, and people outside the South score better than Southerners. The oldest group in the population (age 65 and older) gets fewer questions right than other age groups. However, people 65 and older do about as well as people under age 50 on questions about the Bible and Christianity; they do less well on questions about other world religions.

[Cuddlefish]

12 of 15

[Golden Applesauce]

Now wait a second.  Protestants averaged 6.5 / 12 questions on Christianity, while Mormons averaged 7.9 / 12.  But three questions specifically relating to Mormonism were in the question set (of which Mormons got 2.7 correct.)  Was Mormonism filed under Christianity or World Religions?

[Triple Zero]

I think I got the one of the constitutional questions wrong which, incidentally, is entirely unfair.

14 out of 15.

I thought I'd get those wrong too, and the one about the Smith guy, but I guessed them, figured "Smith sounds American, if it's somehow an important dude, probably mormon" and the Great Awakening one, I knew it wasn't Billy Graham (who, thanks to reading Illuminatus, I know is a televangelist) so I had to guess those.

Guessed them all correctly. Failed on thinking the Sabbath is on Saturday (it isn't??), so 14/15

[Tempest Virago]

I expected this to be harder. I only got 12/15 though so I probably shouldn't talk. It's scary that so many people wouldn't know these things. Some of them were kinda hard, but most of them seemed like basic knowledge that you should know even if you hadn't researched this shit.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

I think I got the one of the constitutional questions wrong which, incidentally, is entirely unfair.

14 out of 15.

I thought I'd get those wrong too, and the one about the Smith guy, but I guessed them, figured "Smith sounds American, if it's somehow an important dude, probably mormon" and the Great Awakening one, I knew it wasn't Billy Graham (who, thanks to reading Illuminatus, I know is a televangelist) so I had to guess those.

Guessed them all correctly. Failed on thinking the Sabbath is on Saturday (it isn't??), so 14/15

The Jewish Sabbath begins at sundown on Friday. (Like I said, last boss was observant Jewish)

[Nephew Twiddleton]

I expected this to be harder. I only got 12/15 though so I probably shouldn't talk. It's scary that so many people wouldn't know these things. Some of them were kinda hard, but most of them seemed like basic knowledge that you should know even if you hadn't researched this shit.

It's not hard at all. I guessed on one question and got it right. Got all the other ones right too.

[Juana]

Now wait a second.  Protestants averaged 6.5 / 12 questions on Christianity, while Mormons averaged 7.9 / 12.  But three questions specifically relating to Mormonism were in the question set (of which Mormons got 2.7 correct.)  Was Mormonism filed under Christianity or World Religions?

Really depends. A lot of people treat them as a non-Christian religion, others do. My philosophy of religion book tucks them in the back of the book along with neo-paganism.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Now wait a second.  Protestants averaged 6.5 / 12 questions on Christianity, while Mormons averaged 7.9 / 12.  But three questions specifically relating to Mormonism were in the question set (of which Mormons got 2.7 correct.)  Was Mormonism filed under Christianity or World Religions?

Mormonism is technically Christianity. 2 testaments in common. Also, they believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the messiah. That is the basic criterion of being Christian, Native American Jews be damned.

ETA: Mormons would score better because they are Protestants. But they are a specific kind of Protestant that other Protestants look upon as at best heretical and at worst Satanic.

[Tempest Virago]

I expected this to be harder. I only got 12/15 though so I probably shouldn't talk. It's scary that so many people wouldn't know these things. Some of them were kinda hard, but most of them seemed like basic knowledge that you should know even if you hadn't researched this shit.

It's not hard at all. I guessed on one question and got it right. Got all the other ones right too.

Yeah, there was just a few I wasn't sure on, and had to guess on. I admit I am not an expert on all things religious, which is why I expected it would be harder for me, I guess.

[Phox]

14/15. Missed the Jewish Sabbath one, because it was misleadingly worded.  (Actually, I didn't bother to read past Jewish Sabbath before answering)

I hesistated before that one as well.  Of course it starts on Friday night, but it is commonly just referred to as Saturday...so you have to wonder, do the test designers actually know this?  I decided since it was Pew, they probably did, but in any other test, I would have just picked Saturday.

Yeah, that's tricky if you answer "When is the Jewish Sabbath?" not, "When, by a modern American calendar week, does the Sabbath begin?" .

The reason I knew John Edwards is because I have read some of his sermons in a few American philosophy courses. The second guy I'd never heard of, though.

[Jenne]

13/15, but I should have done better than that--the only Q I didn't know was that last one, and I spaced on the other one I missed, which I don't remember...this is what I get for working 12 hours in a day.

[Kai]

14/15. Last one was the only one I didn't immediately know, and missed.

[Elder Iptuous]

i immediately knew every single one of them, but missed two... :/