Atheists, Agnostics Most Knowledgeable About Religion

With Christianist working daily to inflict their toxic and intolerant religious beliefs on all U.S. citizens, it's a bit unnerving to find that the Christofascists often don't even know what the Hell they are talking about when they blather about religion. That's what a new Pew U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey suggests. So what group is the most knowledgeable on religious dogma and beliefs? It's atheists and agnostics who score the highest it comes to accurate knowledge about religion. On second thought, however, given the increased embrace of ignorance that seems to be a requirement of today's Christianity - think about the rejection of modernity displayed by the leaders of the Roman Catholics and Southern Baptists, not to mention the creationists just for starters - perhaps the survey's findings should not be surprising after all. Here are some highlights from the Los Angeles Times:
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If you want to know about God, you might want to talk to an atheist. Heresy? Perhaps. But a survey that measured Americans' knowledge of religion found that atheists and agnostics knew more, on average, than followers of most major faiths. In fact, the gaps in knowledge among some of the faithful may give new meaning to the term "blind faith."
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Four in 10 Catholics misunderstood the meaning of their church's central ritual, incorrectly saying that the bread and wine used in Holy Communion are intended to merely symbolize the body and blood of Christ, not actually become them.
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So why would an atheist know more about religion than a Christian? American atheists and agnostics tend to be people who grew up in a religious tradition and consciously gave it up, often after a great deal of reflection and study, said Alan Cooperman, associate director for research at the Pew Forum. "These are people who thought a lot about religion," he said. "They're not indifferent. They care about it."
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Stephen Prothero, a professor of religion at Boston University and author of "Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know -- And Doesn't," served as an advisor on the survey. "I think in general the survey confirms what I argued in the book, which is that we know almost nothing about our own religions and even less about the religions of other people," he said.
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He said he found it significant that Mormons, who are not considered Christians by many fundamentalists, showed greater knowledge of the Bible than evangelical Christians.
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I'd venture a guess that many LGBT Americans likewise know more about religion that many of the self-congratulatory devout. Like atheists and agnostics, many of us have had to engage in reflection and study to overcome the emotional and psychological harm inflicted on us by our religious upbringings.