It wasn't even that hard, either

[retro_andi]

I first heard about the results of the PEW Religious Knowledge Survey on this morning's episode of The Takeaway and while I wasn't too surprised that Atheist/Agnostics pulled out ahead, I was surprised by how many people (percentage wise) knew less than half of the answers.  To be fair, I'm not a theologian--nor am I particularly versed in a

Comments

[suddenleap]

I do remember the BBoH! Also, I took the quiz and also scored 15/15. I admit there was one where I wasn't totally sure (Mother Theresa's religion--shut up), but I narrowed it down and got it right in the end.

In fairness to the American people. a few of the questions I got were rather obscure and I just happened to remember learning the stuff in high school (did you have the one about Jonathan Edwards? I think that one was hard, but I happen to remember Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, which I think he wrote, bless his mean little heart). But most of them are easy and Americans are just kind of dumb and don't care (same goes for constitutional law, oh man). I honestly don't understand this--most people just don't seem that curious about things that don't affect them directly, but everyone I know is. Where do the dull, unmotivated people hide?

[moireach]

Ha, I have this same reaction whenever I read one of those stats about how few people can, like, name any members of government. Have you read Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler? It's scifi about America after the public school system has failed and even though it's obviously fiction it's one of those things that's just realistic enough to be chilling.