davidfcooper

Some of the income differences probably stem from culture. Some faiths place great importance on formal education. But the differences are also self-reinforcing. People who make more money can send their children to better schools, exacerbating the many advantages they have over poorer children.

By: Lea Winerman

Despite their religious faith, many Americans are ignorant of key facts about their own and other world religions, according to a survey released Tuesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

In a survey of 32 religious knowledge questions, Americans on average answered 16 correctly, the surveyors found. Fewer than half of respondents, for example, could identify the four gospels as Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Only 47 percent knew that the Dalai Lama was Buddhist, and 55 percent knew that the "golden rule" was not one of the Ten Commandments.

You can read the full report (PDF)] and test your own knowledge in a quiz on the Pew Forum's website.

In a perhaps counterintuitive finding, the researchers discovered that atheists and agnostics generally know more about religion than people who profess a belief. Atheists and agnostics, on average, answered 20.9 questions correctly. Dave Silverman, president of the advocacy group American Atheists, told The New York Times that he was not surprised by that.

"I have heard many times that atheists know more about religion than religious people," he said. "Atheism is an effect of that knowledge, not a lack of knowledge. I gave a Bible to my daughter. That's how you make atheists."

Atheists and agnostics were closely followed in religious knowledge by Jews, who answered 20.5 questions correctly on average, and Mormons, who averaged 20.3. Protestants averaged 16 correct answers; Catholics averaged 14.7.

Education level explained some of the difference between the groups -- people with more education got more questions correct -- but the differences persisted even after the researchers controlled for education level.

Respondents were generally more knowledgeable about their own religion than about other religions, but still had significant gaps even there. More than half of Protestants (53 percent) could not identify Martin Luther as the man whose teachings inspired the Protestant reformation. And 45 percent of Catholics did not know that that the Catholic Church teaches that the communion bread and wine actually become -- not just symbolize -- the body and blood of Christ.

Americans were also confused about the intersection between religion and public life in the U.S., and where lines are drawn in the separation of church and state. Most people (89 percent) knew that public school teachers could not lead a classroom prayer. But only 23 percent realized that a public school teachers are allowed to teach the Bible as literature in the classroom.

"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, told the Dallas Morning News.

But not every analyst is convinced that the results are so significant. Politics Daily correspondent Jeffrey Weiss, a longtime religion reporter, writes that too many of the question seem to come from something like "a religion version of Trivial Pursuit. Too many check the recognition of names or facts without offering much obvious insight into how people understand their faith or the faith of others."

He also allows, though, that "one can make the case that someone who doesn't know some of the basic names and facts about a faith probably doesn't understand the essentials of that belief.

I took the quiz and got a perfect score.

With the new school year about to commence many New York area Jewish parents will have to find a way to fund their children's day school tuitions. In my June 10, 2010 article I shared my interview with Mindi Wernick and Malkie Grozalsky in which they speak of having made financial sacrifices to send their children to a Jewish school.  In my interview with Nassau County residents Keith and Cindy Hamada, Keith speaks of day school tuition as a form of birth control that limits the sizes of Jewish families.

Although Keith and Cindy belong to an Orthodox synagogue and my wife Shoshana and I belong to a Conservative congregation, I was struck by how similar our levels of observance are, which teaches us that labels don't tell the whole story.

I interviewed the Hamadas at their Nassau County home two years and ten months ago. As in the Wernick/Grozalsky interview and the Simon interview that appeared in this column on July 2, 2010, to make the interview read like a dialogue I have edited out my questions; for clarity the interview subjects sometimes rephrase a question as a statement, and where this occurs it indicates a change of subject. I began the interview by asking how they met.  

The article describes the narrowing and indeed closing of Israeli Orthodox teachers' minds, teachers who pride themselves on their insularity and ignorance of all things not Jewish.

To read the article click here