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Pew Forum survey: Atheists and agnostics outperform the rest in religion test

20 points by ez77 16y ago

jeromec 16y ago
Interesting results. I think atheists/Jewish people perform best because these are the two groups most likely to encounter defensive conversations on the subject of religion? I know I learned a lot more about other religions and the concept of religion in general after becoming atheist, probably incentivised by increased likelihood of debate.
ascuttlefish 16y ago
Take the quiz here: http://features.pewforum.org/quiz/us-religious-knowledge/ http://features.pewforum.org/quiz/us-religious-knowledge/
- jeromec 16y ago
  I got 12 out of 15 correct, trying not to take too long figuring out the answers.
  - ascuttlefish 16y ago
    I got 14. The last one was a stumper!
    - jeromec 16y ago
      Wow, nice! I got #15 wrong too, along with 4, and 6.
- dkarl 16y ago
  It's described as "questions about the core teachings, history and leading figures of major world religions" but it's basically a quiz about Christianity, containing questions that even Christians may miss unless they paid attention in history class, with a couple of very basic questions about other religions thrown in. For example, "Which one of these preachers participated in the period of religious activity known as the First Great Awakening?" and a question asking whether Catholics believe communion wafers and wine become the body and blood of Christ or just symbolize the body and blood of Christ, versus, "In which religion are Vishnu and Shiva central figures?" and a question basically asking which religion observes Ramadan.
chubs 16y ago
Does HN really have to go down the same path as reddit and digg? I was hoping it wouldn't happen. I've found that reddit/digg have become, whats the word, an echo chamber for those with left-wing views. I'm here for the tech news, not that stuff.
- jeromec 16y ago
  With due respect, HN is not meant to be a source of tech news. From the site guidelines: On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Regardless of one's religious views, this article appears to be exemplary of "intellectual curiosity" since that is what's needed to venture outside of, and learn more about religions other than one's own.
- pg 16y ago
  Tsk, tsk, you haven't been here for a year yet. http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
nhebb 16y ago
I got 93%, but I really don't see the value of this survey. It was a set of meta religious questions more than religious questions. If you choose Religion as a Jeopardy topic, these are the kind of questions I would expect.
lotharbot 16y ago
The link provided by ascuttlefish is only to a portion of the test. The full list of questions can be found at [0]. Overall, I found the survey questions to be unsatisfying. Most of them are what I would categorize as religious trivia rather than true religious content. The questions were along the lines of "what is an atheist", "what religion was Mother Teresa", or "what's the name of Islam's holy book". These are the sort of questions I would expect any college-educated person to nail, regardless of religious affiliation. Only two of the questions required any religion-specific depth of understanding: the questions on Catholic communion and on salvation by faith alone. There were no deep or doctrinally interesting questions about Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, or Buddhism. The test is presented as "questions about the core teachings [and other stuff] of major world religions" but there's really very little here about core teachings. Atheists, Agnostics, and Jews performed very well on the "religion and public life" and "world religions" questions, by about 2.5 points over any Christian subgroup. Mormons and white evangelicals scored highest on the "Christianity and the Bible" sections, by about a point over Atheists/agnostics and Jews [1]. The headline is technically correct, but I've seen people draw some far-reaching and mistaken conclusions from it. [0] PDF file: http://pewforum.org/uploadedFiles/Topics/Belief_and_Practices/religious-knowledge-topline.pdf http://pewforum.org/uploadedFiles/Topics/Belief_and_Practice... - note that demographic and general knowledge questions are interspersed with religious questions. [1] http://pewforum.org/Other-Beliefs-and-Practices/U-S-Religious-Knowledge-Survey.aspx http://pewforum.org/Other-Beliefs-and-Practices/U-S-Religiou...

20 points by ez77 16y ago

Interesting results. I think atheists/Jewish people perform best because these are the two groups most likely to encounter defensive conversations on the subject of religion? I know I learned a lot more about other religions and the concept of religion in general after becoming atheist, probably incentivised by increased likelihood of debate.

ascuttlefish 16y ago

Take the quiz here: http://features.pewforum.org/quiz/us-religious-knowledge/ http://features.pewforum.org/quiz/us-religious-knowledge/

jeromec 16y ago
I got 12 out of 15 correct, trying not to take too long figuring out the answers.
- ascuttlefish 16y ago
  I got 14. The last one was a stumper!
  - jeromec 16y ago
    Wow, nice! I got #15 wrong too, along with 4, and 6.
dkarl 16y ago
It's described as "questions about the core teachings, history and leading figures of major world religions" but it's basically a quiz about Christianity, containing questions that even Christians may miss unless they paid attention in history class, with a couple of very basic questions about other religions thrown in. For example, "Which one of these preachers participated in the period of religious activity known as the First Great Awakening?" and a question asking whether Catholics believe communion wafers and wine become the body and blood of Christ or just symbolize the body and blood of Christ, versus, "In which religion are Vishnu and Shiva central figures?" and a question basically asking which religion observes Ramadan.

chubs 16y ago

Does HN really have to go down the same path as reddit and digg? I was hoping it wouldn't happen. I've found that reddit/digg have become, whats the word, an echo chamber for those with left-wing views. I'm here for the tech news, not that stuff.

jeromec 16y ago
With due respect, HN is not meant to be a source of tech news. From the site guidelines: On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Regardless of one's religious views, this article appears to be exemplary of "intellectual curiosity" since that is what's needed to venture outside of, and learn more about religions other than one's own.
pg 16y ago
Tsk, tsk, you haven't been here for a year yet. http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

nhebb 16y ago

I got 93%, but I really don't see the value of this survey. It was a set of meta religious questions more than religious questions. If you choose Religion as a Jeopardy topic, these are the kind of questions I would expect.

lotharbot 16y ago

The link provided by ascuttlefish is only to a portion of the test. The full list of questions can be found at [0]. Overall, I found the survey questions to be unsatisfying. Most of them are what I would categorize as religious trivia rather than true religious content. The questions were along the lines of "what is an atheist", "what religion was Mother Teresa", or "what's the name of Islam's holy book". These are the sort of questions I would expect any college-educated person to nail, regardless of religious affiliation. Only two of the questions required any religion-specific depth of understanding: the questions on Catholic communion and on salvation by faith alone. There were no deep or doctrinally interesting questions about Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, or Buddhism. The test is presented as "questions about the core teachings [and other stuff] of major world religions" but there's really very little here about core teachings. Atheists, Agnostics, and Jews performed very well on the "religion and public life" and "world religions" questions, by about 2.5 points over any Christian subgroup. Mormons and white evangelicals scored highest on the "Christianity and the Bible" sections, by about a point over Atheists/agnostics and Jews [1]. The headline is technically correct, but I've seen people draw some far-reaching and mistaken conclusions from it. [0] PDF file: http://pewforum.org/uploadedFiles/Topics/Belief_and_Practices/religious-knowledge-topline.pdf http://pewforum.org/uploadedFiles/Topics/Belief_and_Practice... - note that demographic and general knowledge questions are interspersed with religious questions. [1] http://pewforum.org/Other-Beliefs-and-Practices/U-S-Religious-Knowledge-Survey.aspx http://pewforum.org/Other-Beliefs-and-Practices/U-S-Religiou...