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So who's surprised?
The results of this poll synch up nicely with my real-life experiences. Not to say that there aren't religiously-knowledgeable believers in the world, but I can recall a number of times I've referenced a bible story in a conversation and gotten a Look Of Total Blankness from my Christian counterpart.
Yeah, that doesn't surprise me all that much. For many people it's a cultural thing and so they simply don't need to learn much about it. They absorb the rituals through osmosis and don't dig deeper than that.Quote:
Almost half of Catholics surveyed did not know that their church teaches that the bread and wine used in Communion actually become the body and blood of Christ.
A majority of Protestants, meanwhile, could not identify Martin Luther as the driving force behind the Protestant Reformation.
I'd love to read more about this. The article says that the quiz was about "different faiths." It doesn't surprise me that religious people wouldn't be well-educated about religions that are not their own. Also, if they took a random sample of people, then folks who are identifying themselves as a particular religion may not be practicing or have any educational background in the religion. I know people who call themselves Catholic who haven't been to church except for weddings and funerals since their first communion. So, I'm not surprised by this, and I think that atheists in general probably tend to be more well-educated in general, especially in the humanities, so it makes sense that they would know a lot of the basics.
This has been my experience with certain people, and it came in really handy when my grandmother asked me if a particular best friend of mine was a Christian. "Oh, Memaw, she's actually read the Bible cover to cover, and we talk a lot about spiritual things!"