How Well Do You Know Religion?

The Pew Forum released the results of a study about American knowledge about religion. The results were discouraging, especially those that indicated no real difference in knowledge based on frequency of church attendance -- in fact, atheists and agnostics scored highest as a faith-affiliated group (in their case, unaffiliated group).

Here's a chance to take about half of the quiz and see how well you'll do.

I scored 14 out of 15 (embarrassingly, I seem to be unaware of the general religious affiliation of Pakistanis).

The average score was 50% right overall. More disturbingly, Christians asked questions specifically about Christianity and the Bible scored 50% (though Mormons got almost 75% as the highest subset of Christians).

Perhaps the questions were not a perfect assessment. I'm not sure that a majority of Americans should know that Maimonides was Jewish (only 8% got that one right). He was an important medieval Jewish thinker, but I'm not sure that's basic religious knowledge. The role of religion in school, the names of the four gospels, and others which were known by less than half of the respondents, should be better known, as should the name of the Islamic Holy Book (known by only 54%).

Polls that show people know basic facts (the name of key public officials, historical dates, etc.) rarely make news. Polls that demonstrate a lack of knowledge seem to make a much bigger splash. But it is sad to see how little people know about something that many claim is a central part of their lives.

The report on the full quiz and the results is here.