The Pew Research Center has completed a new survey of Americans to find out how much we know about religion. The answer is… not much.
The average number of correct answers on the 32 question test was 16, which is a failing grade in any classroom.
Fewer than half of Protestant Christians surveyed could pick the founder of their own religion in a multiple-choice question.
Interestingly, people that identified themselves as Agnostic or Atheist knew more about religion than any other group.
Alan Cooperman, associate director for research at the Pew Forum, said that the results are not surprising. Atheists and Agnostics often grew up in religious families and gave up that faith after years of careful consideration and study.
Catholics had the lowest scores. In Catholicism, the bread and wine used in Communion is thought to actually become the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Only about half of the Catholics surveyed knew that; the rest thought it was just symbolic.
Boston University Professor, Stephen Prothero, called the US “a nation of religious illiterates.”
- ”We have a lot of people who really love Jesus, but don't know much about him.”
Think you can score higher than the average American? Take the Pew Forum quiz here.
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