U.S. a nation of faith filled with religious illiterates

[truthpusher]

http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050116/OPINION04/101160014/-1/opinion

U.S. a nation of faith filled with religious illiterates

By STEPHEN PROTHERO, Special to the Los Angeles Times

Published: Sunday, Jan. 16, 2005

(snip)

But here is the paradox: Although Americans are far more religious than Europeans, they know far less about religion.

In Europe, religious education is the rule from the elementary grades on. So Austrians, Norwegians and the Irish can tell you about the Seven Deadly Sins or the Five Pillars of Islam.

But, according to a 1997 poll, only one out of three U.S. citizens was able to name the most basic of Christian texts, the four Gospels, and 12 percent thought Noah’s wife was Joan of Arc.

That paints a picture of a nation that believes God speaks in Scripture but that can’t be bothered to read what he has to say.

More here:

http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050116/OPINION04/101160014/-1/opinion

[SharonAnn]

1. Wow, sounds like some of the people here in East Tennessee.

It sometimes amazes me how little they know about their own religion, much less any other religion.

But, it's more like a "cult" thing than a religious thing.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

2. Great column! Loved the read and thanks for posting it.

(It'll probably get moved to opinion, but I hope it stays here long enough for more to read.)

:toast:

[indepat]

3. A nation full of brainwashed, mostly brain-dead religious illiterates?

[bobthedrummer]

4. An ahistorical society of consumers.

[Blower]

37. Isn't "Christian" a brand name....

Yes, that right, good consumer. I feel good about the word "Christian"--where can I buy this?

[Deja Q]

5. Noah married to Joan of Arc? What'd they name their offspring, Sequoia?

:crazy:

[NYC]

8. I just figured that out.

Noah's Ark. Joan of Arc. Same last name.

[targetpractice]

9. That's Mrs. Arc to you, dear.

;-)

[bmbmd]

27. Joan Van Arc, you religious illiterate.

You know, from "Knot's Landing".

[PartyPooper]

34. ROFLMAO!

:D

:hi:

[daleo]

6. I have seen this quite often, where church goers don't really know dogma

In fact, I had a discussion about the Immaculate Conception versus the Virgin Birth a while back with two devout Catholics that I work with. By chance I had learned something of the distinction (that the former referred to Mary and the latter to Jesus), and mentioned it in a coffee table discussion. Neither believed me, until I pointed it out on an official Catholic website devoted to church dogma.

On edit - It has often seemed to me that most religious dogma is easier to believe if you don't know much about it.

[TahitiNut]

12. I've often wondered what Joseph and his father-in-law ...

... talked about over a couple of brewskis. :silly:


Man! Talk about a couple of guys with marital issues! :crazy:

[nadinbrzezinski]

19. Hey and it is not like they could go chase that dove away

:-)

[tblue37]

28. It is the same with fanatics of many religions.

Several years ago a Pakistani college student if mine told me that he had been recently studying his religion and reading his Qu'ran, and he was astonished to find out that most of what his mullahs had taught him so dogmatically was simply not true.

[Rowdyboy]

7. I would love to find a link to the poll saying 12% of Americans thought

Joan of Arc was Noah's wife. That is priceless!

[roguevalley]

10. I think there is a lot of guilt drilled into people about questioning

their religion. I know it took me years not to be afraid to even think about Jesus laughing or having bodily functions. Odd isn't it. And, a lot of people grow up in their religions and over the years I've found they do less study of history and religion and all the details then they do about proclaiming and witnessing and all that icky shit that I hate with a passion.

Its a lifestyle that you say you have, making you part of the group, than a belief system that you have to think over and about for too many.

[cosmicdot]

39. try the Barna Group

"You have opened the research archive about the Bible. The statistics and analysis in this archive come from national surveys conducted by Barna Research."

scroll down to the "Knowledge" section for:

12% of adults believe that the name of Noah’s wife was Joan of Arc. (The Bible does not provide her name.) (1997)

http://www.barna.org/FlexPage.aspx?Page=Topic&TopicID=7

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=Barna+research+group+Joan+of+Arc&btnG=Search

[LibertyorDeath]

ROTFLMAO "12 percent thought Noah’s wife was Joan of Arc"

AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

11. Ignorance is easily manipulated

I look at all the "Ten Commandments" signs at people's homes and wonder how many of them can even tell someone what all ten are, much less follow them (since I see cars with fish at different stores on Sundays, I'd guess not).

[Lone_Star_Dem]

16. And there you have the formula for success by the fundie leaders.

"Ignorance is easily manipulated"

They prey on the uneducated and often despondent people in society. If you were to study any other successful cult they follows the same pattern. Find their weakness and exploit it.

Then once you show them how you can help ease their suffering you keep them hooked with fear and threats. It's all a sick game of manipulating and control.

[Solly Mack]

13. Excuse me while I

ROTF & LMAO

[starroute]

14. I was wondering lately whatever happened to the Trinity

I'm not a Christian, but simply from reading history I'm aware that faith in the Trinity used to be the main thing that set Christianity off from Judaism and Islam. It was the greatest of mysteries, a sort of Zen koan that could lead to enlightenment for those who meditated on it deeply enough.

You don't hear much about the Trinity these days. Instead, most Christians in this country seem to be what I hope I don't offend anybody by calling Jesus-worshippers. Christianity has degenerated into a sort of applaud-if-you-believe-in-fairies religion, where if you simply have enough faith that Christ is your savior, he will be.

That sort of Walmartization of faith can only be disturbing to anyone who values the inner content of religion.

[Just Me]

15. When I told a "fundie" Bush was breaching the 2nd commandment,...

,...he hadn't clue,...couldn't remember the 2nd commandment.

When I gave him a hint,...that it was unforgiveable for anyone to hold out God's name for purposes of profitting or empowering themselves,...he still had no clue.

Then, I asked him what would be an example of a person acting in vain. Clueless.

Finally, I asked,...if a man falsely represented to you that he was God's witness and demanded a hundred bucks from you to ensure your path to heaven,...would he be taking "the Lord thy God's name in vain"?

Ah hah. Still, the only definition he had of that commandment was a literal god-damn thingy,...no practical active application.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

17. It's NOT a paradox! It's the LOGICAL consequence!

The more you know about it, the more you want to stay away from it.

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. Shocking.... NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It is amazing just how little many people who profess a faith (insert faith here actually does not only apply to Fundies btw) have no clue what their faith is all about. Nor do they know what are the articles of faith or any of that happy horse....

[DiverDave]

20. Um, Mrs. Arc?

Your seat is ready on the boat, ma'am.


LOL LOL LOL
jeez people are so stupid.

[HuckleB]

21. Indeed.

But ignorance is often the key when it comes to pushing fundamentalism, so it's not surprising.

[bettyellen]

22. "What is un-American is to give those debates over to ....

televangelists of either the secular or the religious variety, to absent ourselves from the discussion by ignorance.

good stuff! thanks.

[The Zanti Regent]

23. This is precisely the trash TV Preachers utter.

Watch Trinity or Daystar wand listen to what lies come out of these whoreverands!

[VegasWolf]

24. Well, that easily explains why only 22% of europeans are "churched",

they actually know better than to fall for all the bullshit.
Maybe they shoud educate people here about religion. I had
an outstanding Jesuit Catholic education, that is why I am an
atheist.

[reprobate]

40. And most of the europeans know historically what happens ....

....when religion gets involved with state. I imagine it's left a bitter taste in their mouths about religion.

[BikeWriter]

25. Oh, my freakin' dog! n/t

[Rose Siding]

26. Exceptionalism and nationalism on steroids

passes here for what some call "faith". The rest of the world is dealing with pre-cabal definitions.

[yardwork]

29. The right-wingers fight any comparative religious teaching

When the University of North Carolina asked incoming freshman to read a book about Islam to discuss the first week of classes, the right-wing went bananas. The assignment wasn't even a requirement and had no grades or class credit associated with it.

I can't understand why a person seeking a college education would be offended by the request to actually learn something, but so it was.

[goddess40]

30. It's easy to sit in church once,or twice, a week and be told what to think

Not that all people that go to church sign over their responsibilities to run their own life but I do believe it is the vast majority. Every one of them that voted for bush because their religious leader dictated it has taken the 'easy' road and stopped thinking for themselves and tried to wash the blood of this war from their hands. Everyone that voted for bush this time has the blood of our dead and wounded on their hands and that blood of the innocent Iraqis.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

31. As a preacher's kid, I'm not surprised.

Not surprised at all.

When I was growing up, the Lutherans were big on youth education, with lots of Bible stories in Sunday School, a requirement to learn the 10 Commandments and the Apostles' Creed on the elementary school level, and three years of confirmation class, covering the Bible, church history, and theology, beginning in ninth grade.

However, that system fell apart when the Lutherans began admitting children to Communion at age ten.

Even so, the Lutherans, Episcopalians, and Roman Catholics all follow the Three-Year Lectionary, which takes you through all four Gospels over a period of three years, and gives you quite a good selection of the rest of the Bible.

It's true that fundamentalists of all religions don't know their own scriptures well, because they'd find things that contradicted their beliefs. Did any of you see that Wide Angle report about a Pakistani pop musician who was being criticized by the mullahs? They kept declaring that secular music was forbidden by the Koran, and he kept challenging them to point out the chapter and verse. They couldn't do it, because there is no such verse, but they seemed to feel that if they ganged up on him and shouted him down, then that would somehow make it so.

Similarly, "Christian" fundamentalists don't know that the Bible condemns greed and oppression of the poor again and again, because they read only the passages that their ministers highlight.

[girl gone mad]

38. Fellow Lutheran minister's daughter here..

I think fundamentalist preachers rely on their congregations being uneducated about the bible.

Evangelists are always shocked when told that god performs an abortion in the bible, or that he has a bear kill a group of children for making fun of an old man. As soon as passages that contradict common church teachings gain widespread attention, the "fundamentalists" will simply re-write the bible to better suit their own beliefs.

[arwalden]

32. Fundamental Idiots.

[hollowdweller]

33. There'd be more Dems if people really read the Bible for themselves.

[WildClarySage]

35. This explains why so many fundies believe in the rapture

and think it's biblical prophecy.

[Merlin]

36. Please, oh PLEASE DO read the bible!

The Word of God ?
OR
Ancient Tribal Folklore?

Judge for yourself.

Pick up the good book and actually read what's in it.
Nobody does that, you know. Nobody except biblical scholars.

Fundies only read excerpts.

Because the bible itself is a hodgepodge of fable and lore and mythology and nonsense and contradictions and convolutions and horror and lurid sex.

THIS, they call "The Word of God!" As if the God that created the universe would be capable of such awful writing.

Start with Genesis:

It says ”God created man in his own image… male and female.” (Genesis 1:27)
Is HE both? Does the Almighty have a body?
And wasn’t Eve but an afterthought from Adam’s rib? (Genesis 2:22)

HE, the All Knowing, places his creatures in Eden beside the tempting forbidden trees.
HE tells them they will die if they eat from one of these trees.
But a renegade serpent outsmarts the All Knowing, All Powerful God. (Genesis 3:3)

The first couple eats forbidden fruit—it’s all Eve’s fault, of course—and yet they live.
They “hide” from HIM, the All Knowing, in the Garden. HE is furious. (Genesis 3:8-9)
Can these truly be the antics of the Creator of the Universe? Or of a sitcom?

God punishes Eve: “In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children…” (Genesis 3:16)
Are women sorrowful when they give birth?
And: "…thy husband, shall rule over thee." (Genesis 3:16)
Evidently the All Knowing did not anticipate the twenty-first century.

HE, the All Just, is really steamed at Adam, too. From now on, he’ll have to toil to eat. “Because thou listened to thy wife’s voice, I curse the ground...” (Genesis 3:16).

God exclaims: “Man is become as one of us, to know good and evil.” (Genesis 3:22)
HE gave humans curiosity and reason then is surprised when they use their talents?

First child, Cain, on killing brother Abel, fears revenge from “everyone.” (Genesis 4:14)
But at that time only Cain and his parents exist.
From whence came others?
Would the Creator of the Universe make such an elementary continuity error in HIS book?

All Good, All Just God protects killer Cain:
“Whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold,”
“and God set a mark on Cain, lest any finding him kill him. (Genesis 4:15)
All Just God shelters a murderer?

“There were giants on the earth in those days,” who lived 900 years. (Genesis 6:4)
God decides to limit the length of men's lives.
“(Man’s) days shall be an hundred and twenty years.” (Genesis 6:3)
Yet many still live longer:
 Shem: 600 years (Genesis 11:10-11)
 Arphaxd: 438 years (Genesis 11:12)
 Salah: 433 years (Genesis 11:15)
 Eber: 464 years (Genesis 11:17)
 Peleg: 239 years (Genesis 11:19)
 Even Terah, Abram’s father: 205 years (Genesis 11:32)
And many, many more.
Are the Creator’s own laws ignored by Nature?

God is suddenly furious with man’s unexpected wickedness.
“I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth;
both man, and beast, and creeping thing, and fowls of the air.” (Genesis 6:7)
Would an All Knowing God be outraged by HIS own creations?

God drowns the world. Noah was a mere 600 years old then. (Genesis 7:6)
God kills all things that live on land, except “good and just” Noah and ark mates.
Is this the act of an All Good, All Just God (or human)?

Afterward, drunken Noah is seen “uncovered” by son Ham. (Genesis 9:22)
When Noah sobers up, he “knew what (Ham) had done to him.” (Genesis 9:24)
He condemns Ham’s son to be a slave to Ham’s brothers. (Genesis 9:24)
The All Knowing had already pronounced Noah to be “good and just.”
But now Noah condemns his grandson to a life of slavery.
Why? Because that grandson’s father, Noah’s own son, saw Noah naked.
The story implicitly condones slavery as well as vengeance for trivialities.
It also condones retribution upon the children of sinners.
Would "The Word of God" include a story endorsing such injustice?

By many “tongues” were people “divided” even before Babel. (Genesis 10:20 & 31)
But then it says the opposite: “the whole earth was of one language, and one speech.” (Genesis 11:1)
Go figure.
Would tribes living far apart in primitive times speak the same language?

God fears “nothing will restrain them from what they imagine to do,” (Genesis 11:6)
HE confounds language “so they may not know one another's speech,” (Genesis 11:7)
Does this sound like The Word of God to you? Or just a fable?

We’re now only one percent of the way into the Old Testament.

On and on it goes.

The only reason people think the bible is "The Word Of God" is because they have never actually read it.

[ikojo]

41. Try being Jewish in a fundy atmosphere...many fundies

REALLY believe that Jews today in 2005 live as they did in the time of Moses! Many fundies think that Jews still engage in animal sacrifice as described in the Torah.

Sadly, many Jews think that being Jewish just means not believing in the divinity of Jesus. Oy vey! Judaism is far more than Christianity minus Jesus! This I blame on the woeful state of Jewish education in America. For most American Jews their Jewish education ends on their bar/bat mitzvah, just at the time intensive education should begin.

NO Jewish parent in the US would allow his/her child to end their secular education at 13, so why do they end their Jewish education at such an important age?

[FlyByNight]

42. Selective fundamentalism and ignorance sure makes...

for a potent combination. It certainly explains a lot of religious Americans' behavior and hostility to anything "intellectual".

[yellowcanine]

43. What? Joan of Arc wasn't Noah's wife? They were shacking up?

Dang that Noah, what a dirty old man he was.