Dear R&S: A Pew Poll has shown that atheists score higher in religious knowledge...?

That's what I would expect. Most atheists I know, including myself, came to the conclusion after researching and learning about religion.

There are two things here.

Overall religious knowledge,

Knowledge of the Bible.

I am not surprised that Mormons have the highest knowledge of the Bible.

What is the Book Of Mormon, The Pearl Of Great Price, And The Doctrine And Covenants, if not extensions of the Bible, after all?

In The Book Of Mormon, a major character will be in a tough circumstance, what does he do?

He quotes the Bible, and then does amazing faith promoting brave deeds.

So even if you were a Mormon and you did not read the Bible, but read the other three standard works of The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter Day Saints, you would know a lot about the Bible.

Of course the Bible is indispensable, but highly misunderstood, hence the need for the other three scripture books in the first place.

Also Mormons often go to early morning scripture study, while young.

Furthermore Mormons believe in works. One of those works is going to Church and reading the scriptures regularly.

Additionally children in the Church have access to a plethera of Animated Videos, Mormons close association with the Disney company and animation in general has allowed LDS children to watch videos that teach the principals of Jesus Christ and his holy Apostles, using Disney style cartoons.

Also Mormons go on Missions.

At college there is something called Institute, which continues the religious education, all based on the Bible and the LDS other scriptures.

Furthermore there is something called Family Home Evening where the family gets together and does something fun, and also scripture reading as well.

Mormons believe they themselves should know the scriptures, to learn and prosper from them, not to win absurd arguments. So therefor how much the preacher knows is not relevant, but how much the typical Mormon knows about the Bible is important, because it leads to repentance.

There still needs to be work done by Mormons to get much better at knowing the scriptures, family by family, but the only thing I would be surprised to find is that Mormons are not head and shoulders above all other religions when it comes to Bible knowledge.

This survey may be a surprise to many at Yahoo Answers because of all the silly Anti-Mormon propaganda that you see on Yahoo Answers all the time that try to tell people that...

Mormons are:

Dumb.

Selfish.

Stupid.

Have no clue about the Bible.

Believe in "...another Jesus than the Bible..."

Are spending their time hating Gay people rather than studying The Bible and The Book Of Mormon

Are ill informed.

Brain Washed.

Are not logical, rational people.

And so on and so and so and so on... this crazy talk will never end until Jesus returns, just the way it is.

Anybody can go to Famous Mormons.com to get a clue about Mormons. There are plenty of diverse intelligent people in the Mormon population.

The false image that people are pumping out about Mormons will never end until people go up to their Preachers, and tell them in NO UNCERTAIN TERMS to stop bad mouthing The Mormons, and start teaching the Bible.

These preachers spend so much time hating Mormons, and talking about Mormons, they forget to do their job which is t-e-a-c-h T-h-e B-i-b-l-e.

Firstly, if true within the context of the PEW study (I don't know enough about the PEW study to trust it.), I suspect it might be due to the atheists and agnostics who were polled being people who became atheist or agnostic as adults or in their late teens, but regarded as Protestant or Catholic anyone who was born into a family that identified itself as belonging to one of those faiths, and who had not explicitly rejected membership in that faith group. I suspect the atheists and agnostics were identified using significantly different standards. Thus, the results of the study would be unreliable. Secondly, tragic though it would be if true in this case, many people stop studying once they are convinced that something is true. I myself make no investigation into whether gravity will remain in effect tomorrow, and I really have no idea why gravity occurs (nor does anyone else), nor when it started to occur. Nonetheless, I act with complete confidence that gravity exists and is utterly reliable. Many people are similarly certain that God exists, since to many people it is utterly obvious that God does indeed exist. Many people don't need lots of convincing on this matter, since they believe that God exists and are in fact correct. I am Roman Catholic. Peace be with you. EDIT: Much like many religious people might stop studying once they are convinced of the truth, I think many atheists stop studying as soon as they come to a serious point of doubt. They then leave that religion behind and try another, until they encounter doubt, then move on again. I'm sure this is not true for all atheists, but I also am sure it is true for many atheists and agnostics.

A large proportion, possibly a majority, of atheists of the present generation were once part of a religion. That means they have made the deliberate choice of no longer following such a religion, and often that is because they became unconvinced. In other words, they've thought about it.

Most people in religions tend to be 'default' followers - they were brought up in the faith as children, so didn't make a deliberate choice to join it. In general they are less likely to have looked into it than those who have become atheists, so are less aware of the claims and nature of the religion.

Likely that will change in future generations as people are brought up without a religion and only have a cursory awareness of their claims and nature.

The atheists that I know, which is almost everyone, all had good educations in Europe or Asia which included the basic knowledge of what the various faith groups around the world believe.

When you understand how religions work and why, you are not going to believe in any of their myths and stories are you?

Thanks for the info, very interesting. I just took the religious quiz there and only got the last one wrong. If those questions were the same as the poll questions then people definitely need to brush up on their religious knowledge. But hey I now know who is responsible for the First great awakening.

Most Agnostics/Atheist used to be religious at some point. We just chose not to leave our brains in the parking lot when we went to church. As for Mormons they are all scared that their family will disown them and they will have to do as all the Mormon homosexual teens do and hang themselves.

Atheists typically take religion more seriously than theists do. We do the research which is usually why we come to the conclusion that god most likely doesn't exist.

It doesn't surprise me in the slightest.

If more Christians actually studied their religion there would be more agnostics and/or atheists in the world

wow