U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey

After seeing numerous articles discussing how atheists and agnostics typically know more about the bible then your everyday Christian, and considering my recent articles discussing fanatics like Christine O'Donnell who is running for Senate, I have found out that the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life offered an online version of their quiz that they used to determine their results - they rephrase 15 of the 32 questions from the original telephone survey.  I had decided to see just where I stand and while I did not score a perfect 15, I came pretty close - I got a 14!

Here are the questions, my responses, the correct answers, and the percentage of the population that had gotten the question correct:

Question	Your Response	Correct Answer	% of survey respondents answering correctly
1. Which Bible figure is most closely associated with leading the exodus from Egypt?	Moses	Moses	72%
2. What was Mother Teresa's religion?	Catholic	Catholic	82
3. Which of the following is NOT one of the Ten Commandments?	Do unto others as you would have them do unto you	Do unto others as you would have them do unto you	55
4. When does the Jewish Sabbath begin?	Saturday	Friday	45
5. Is Ramadan…?	The Islamic holy month	The Islamic holy month	52
6. Which of the following best describes the Catholic teaching about the bread and wine used for Communion?	The bread and wine actually become the body and blood of Jesus Christ.	The bread and wine actually become the body and blood of Jesus Christ.	40
7. In which religion are Vishnu and Shiva central figures?	Hinduism	Hinduism	38
8. Which Bible figure is most closely associated with remaining obedient to God despite suffering?	Job	Job	39
9. What was Joseph Smith's religion?	Mormon	Mormon	51
10. According to rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court, is a public school teacher permitted to lead a class in prayer, or not?	No, not permitted	No, not permitted	89
11. According to rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court, is a public school teacher permitted to read from the Bible as an example of literature, or not?	Yes, permitted	Yes, permitted	23
12. What religion do most people in Pakistan consider themselves?	Muslim	Muslim	68
13. What was the name of the person whose writings and actions inspired the Protestant Reformation?	Martin Luther	Martin Luther	46
14. Which of these religions aims at nirvana, the state of being free from suffering?	Buddhism	Buddhism	36
15. Which one of these preachers participated in the period of religious activity known as the First Great Awakening?	Jonathan Edwards	Jonathan Edwards	11

Here was how I compared:

I was pretty satisfied with my score and was really surprised to see the percentage of people who got certain questions wrong that I thought was common knowledge.  I had always thought the Jewish Sabbath was on Saturday, but according to Wikipedia it is from sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday (maybe I should get a half-point for my answer).

Here are some more stats:

Here are two questions that I found of particular interest - the numbers on the right show how I compare to other religions (White Evangelical Protestant, White Mainline Protestent, Black Protestant, White Catholic, Hispanic Catholic, Mormon, Jewish, Atheist/Agnostic, and Nothing in particular).

10. According to rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court, is a public school teacher permitted to lead a class in prayer, or not?   Yes, permitted No, not permitted		89	93	90	83	91	83	89	91	95	87
11. According to rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court, is a public school teacher permitted to read from the Bible as an example of literature, or not?   Yes, permitted No, not permitted		23	26	21	16	18	16	25	42	40	25

While most groups answered Question Ten correctly, most groups got Question 11 wrong - agnostics, atheists, and Jews got the highest scores.

I find these results interesting because of comments you see from conservative Christian Americans, much like the ones you see on Andrew Breitbart's bevy of Big sites, who constantly fear that the Obama administration is trying to remove God from the classroom.  The bible is permitted in our public schools for educational purposes but just so long as the contents in their religious context are not being taught to our nation's school children.   

I think it is important for Americans to become acquainted with all religions and not just their own, but more importantly, I believe they should remember the founding principles of this nation and not the revisionist history propagated by the far right.

Check how you score here.