Gee, more ignorance.

[urocyon]

Interesting (and more than a little disturbing) report, via the dark_christian LJ community: U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey. I tried to look at this last night, but the server was overloaded.

I knew there was a lot of ignorance going around, but the responses here kind of amazed me.

Nearly six-in-ten U.S. adults say that religion is “very important” in their lives, and roughly four-in-ten say they attend worship services at least once a week. But the U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey shows that large numbers of Americans are uninformed about the tenets, practices, history and leading figures of major faith traditions – including their own...

More than four-in-ten Catholics in the United States (45%) do not know that their church teaches that the bread and wine used in Communion do not merely symbolize but actually become the body and blood of Christ. About half of Protestants (53%) cannot correctly identify Martin Luther as the person whose writings and actions inspired the Protestant Reformation, which made their religion a separate branch of Christianity. Roughly four-in-ten Jews (43%) do not recognize that Maimonides, one of the most venerated rabbis in history, was Jewish.

In addition, fewer than half of Americans (47%) know that the Dalai Lama is Buddhist. Fewer than four-in-ten (38%) correctly associate Vishnu and Shiva with Hinduism. And only about a quarter of all Americans (27%) correctly answer that most people in Indonesia – the country with the world’s largest Muslim population – are Muslims.

I mean, I've got a number of at-least-nominally Methodist relatives, most likely from all the past evangelizing to the Natives^, and I doubt that most of them know much about some of the (to me, and no doubt them) dodgier points of John Wesley's theology^^. Things like transubstantiation, Martin Luther's and Maimonides' influence? Those I'd expect people identifying with the relevant religious movements to know. *shakes head*

I'm not even going to go further into the abysmal state of knowledge about other major world religions. Unfortunately, I can see where that comes from. Who would need to know about that heathen garbage, when you've got the One True Way?

The apparent pressure to identify with some kind of (monotheistic) religion while knowing very little about any of them still amazes me. I'm glad I mostly missed out on that one, other than on a "WTF is wrong, in wider society?!" kind of way. Shame more people haven't, or things might not be so complicated in a number of dangerously politicized ways.

There is also a quiz, with 15 (of the 32) multiple-choice questions from the survey. Since those look to be a representative sample, I am even more appalled. Only one gave me a problem, not knowing anything about the First Great Awakening (though I was pretty sure Billy Graham was not involved). I am not the most knowledgeable person around, and my 15/15 was in the 99th percentile. This really disturbed me. I got one less question right than average for the whole longer survey.

On average, Americans correctly answer 16 of the 32 religious knowledge questions on the survey by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life. Atheists and agnostics average 20.9 correct answers. Jews and Mormons do about as well, averaging 20.5 and 20.3 correct answers, respectively. Protestants as a whole average 16 correct answers; Catholics as a whole, 14.7. Atheists and agnostics, Jews and Mormons perform better than other groups on the survey even after controlling for differing levels of education.

I wish I were surprised at the (greatly encouraged) "widespread confusion over the line between teaching and preaching in public schools." *headdesk*


This brings to mind one poll from last year: Americans More Likely to Credit Obama for Verse on Justice than Bible:

A Bible verse about caring for the poor and the oppressed was wrongly attributed by a majority of U.S. adults to celebrities, politicians and other prominent figures including President Obama, Oprah, Bono and Angelina Jolie.

Only 13 percent of Americans surveyed by Harris Interactive on behalf of the American Bible Society was able to correctly credit the Bible as the source of Proverbs 31:8-9, the Contemporary English Version of which states: “You must defend those who are helpless and have no hope. Be fair and give justice to the poor and homeless.”...

Other findings of the Harris Interactive survey included the percentage of adults claiming to be familiar with the Bible (80 percent) and the percentage adults who think the Bible offers the most teachings on heaven, hell, adultery, pride or jealousy (46 percent).

The survey also found that one in four men (23 percent) do not think it is their responsibility to help the poor though there are more teachings on poverty and justice than on any of the topics previously mentioned.

Even taking into account the adage that 25% of people polled will agree with just about anything, that was pretty amazing. (Not in least, because that many people would readily admit this mean-spiritedness to a stranger.) Maybe not so much in this context.

I'll close with an, erm, interesting one from the original survey's full report (PDF):

And only about one-third of those polled know which famous court trial dealt with whether evolution could be taught in public schools; 31% know this was the Scopes trial, while 36% say it was Brown vs. Board of Education and 3% name the Salem witch trials.

^ Even though John and Charles "Secretary of Indian Affairs" Wesley didn't have much luck converting people in Georgia, got fed up, and quickly went home, some of their followers kept trying, and even followed them west after removals. Persistent... ("For 183 years the people called Methodist have been in ministry with the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians": Mississippi United Methodist Choctaw Mission)

The bit directly preceding that 183 year statement? "Alcoholism, domestic violence, addictions, a 50% high school dropout rate and teen pregnancy are constant threats to the everyday life of many Choctaw families." Oh my. I don't think that reads the way they were hoping.

I'm not specifically picking on the Methodists, BTW; more the depressingly common missionary history.

^^ "He rarely let pass any opportunity to impress upon his followers the doctrines of submission."# Not emphasized much these days, in a "conquer sin, not social deprivation" kind of way! I only looked further into Wesley's theology after reading Peter Linebaugh's The London Hanged--but, I have never been a Methodist.

Comments

[torachan]

The most mind-boggling thing to me is that the group who says it should be private citizens and charities who help people in need rather than the government has the greatest overlap with people who think it's not their job to help the poor. Like, um. You don't want it to come from your taxes and you don't want to give out of your own pocket. Awesome!

[urocyon]

Yeah, I couldn't help but think about that too. Considering the demographic usually suggesting that this is a good idea, I have to wonder if it isn't at least somewhat purposeful "don't help the undeserving". Nice way to do public policy! :-|

[norah_liath]

I'm not that sure that things are any better over here, regarding knowledge about religion. Maybe people are better informed about their own religion (though judging from my "catholic" relatives, not much), but schools mostly either teach about whatever religion they were funded on, or they don't teach about any religion at all. So if you grow up without religion like me, you know ***** about any of them :). Which is not always convenient. And there are quite a lot of people here growing up without any religion.

I kinda thought that the lack of knowledge about Indonesia you referred to was part of a general lack of knowledge about other countries, which I usually encounter in the form of people from the USA referring to Europe as some kind of monolith to the point of not really knowing there are different countries. Also just a few days ago or so, I saw a blogger somewhere, from the US, calling Amsterdam a country.

[urocyon]

Good point about the general international lack of knowledge. More American Exceptionalism, oh my. :/ I think this interacts in some really unsavory ways with the dodgier religious ideas (America as an explicitly Christian nation, from people willfully ignoring what Jefferson et al. had to say, and so forth). If the US is such a holy institution and collection of people with the best social and political setup ever, why would you want to learn about anyone else, including their cultures and religions? It's easier to dehumanize them and knock them over the heads to take their stuff that way. Utopian Legacies, anyone?!

Erm, yeah, maybe a little heavy-handed, but it's a bit of a sore point. ;)

[urocyon]

One anecdote I forgot to add:

My mom (who lived in Germany for a while) and I were shocked when I was getting ready to move to the UK from the US, and one of my much-younger cousins expressed surprise that you could move overseas--much less that anywhere else was good enough, with a decent enough standard of living, that you'd want to! She did not get that at home. That really brought home the apparent upswing in that kind of attitude. :(

[firecat]

I'm not reacting to this survey in quite the same way that many of my online friends are.

I think most people should know about the basic structures and beliefs of the major world religions, but I don't think it counts as horrific ignorance that many people don't know the demographics or the histories of religions other than their own.

[urocyon]

I don't find that as disturbing, either; there's not as much compelling reason to know that. IMO, it's good to learn more, in a general "understand history and why the world is the way it is" kind of way. (In the demographics file, knowing something about how many other people in the world do not follow your religion is really, really handy for perspective.) But it's not as crucial as learning those things about your own!

In some cases, unfortunately, it's handy for organizations that more people don't know what they've gotten up to in past (and sometimes all that they're doing now). I suspect that most of this falls into the general "how is history relevant to me?" category, though.

[firecat]

I agree it's good to learn and understand stuff and I agree ignorance is convenient for controlling people. I also think that "time to devote to learning" is something of a privilege that a lot of people don't get. I would like to know how to change society so that "time to devote to learning" is valued and available for a lot more people. In the meantime, the behavior of blaming individuals for their ignorance without knowing their circumstances troubles me. (I'm not saying you did that, but it's a general tone I've seen in discussions of this report.)

[urocyon]

I would like to know how to change society so that "time to devote to learning" is valued and available for a lot more people.

Definitely! When you're working your ass off to survive, other people expecting you to take some of that copious spare time and energy you've got (ha!) for that sort of thing is ridiculously unrealistic. Looking down on you because you can't? Even worse. Then there's unequal access to decent-quality education and information in general, besides the time and energy to make use of what is available. That's also a great way of making sure the inequality continues, which was a good bit of the reason I was despairing.

I really hope I didn't come across as blaming individuals, when the social setup they're living in is the real problem!

[firecat]

That's also a great way of making sure the inequality continues, which was a good bit of the reason I was despairing.

Yes, definitely.

I really hope I didn't come across as blaming individuals, when the social setup they're living in is the real problem!

You didn't. I just thought it was worthwhile to make that point explicit, given what I've seen elsewhere.