Pew Survey: Atheists Know More About Religion Than Religious Americans

(Sept. 28) -- Americans are among the most religious of people in developed nations. But according to a new survey, many of us don't know much about religion itself.

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has finished an extensive survey of religion in America, and the results might surprise some: Of all religious groups surveyed, atheists and agnostics scored significantly higher than most of the faithful on religious knowledge, joined by Mormons and Jews.

The survey asked a few basic questions about religion: What is Ramadan? Where was Jesus born? Which biblical figure led the Exodus from Egypt? And so on.

Most respondents answered about half of the questions correctly. More than half were unable to distinguish Martin Luther as the central figure in the Protestant Reformation.

Greg Smith, a senior researcher with the Pew Forum, suspects that atheists may have scored higher because they were more likely to have been raised in a faith and made a conscious, informed decision about their belief.

Some countered that there is a difference between knowing information about Scripture and history and having an emotional connection to religion, and that Americans' deep commitment to religion is about more than factual knowledge.

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"This study gives convincing proof that Americans may be deeply committed to faith, but that commitment comes most from the heart, not the head," Michael Lindsay, a religion sociologist at Rice University in Houston, told the Dallas Morning News, which referred to those parts of the survey as a "religion quiz."

Dr. Stephen Prothero, author of "Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know -- and Doesn't," was an adviser on the survey. He was unnerved by the results.

"We have a weird kind of Christianity in America if Christians don't even know what Christianity is," he told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Read the full report here.