Survey: Nonbelievers know more about religion than believers

A study has found that Catholics and Protestants know less about the major religions of the world than atheists and agnostics.

The survey was carried out for the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, and it aimed to test “a broad range of religious knowledge,” according to the Daily Telegraph. Many participants didn’t even know things about the religions they belonged to. “Forty-five per cent of Roman Catholics who participated in the study didn’t know that, according to church teaching, the bread and wine used in Holy Communion is not just a symbol, but becomes the body and blood of Christ,” says the paper. This is a purported phenomenon known as transubstantiation. And more than half of the Protestants didn’t know that Martin Luther was the inspiration behind the Protestant Reformation. The survey asked 32 questions, among them the name of the Islamic holy book (the Koran), which century the Mormon religion began (19th century – 1820s to be more exact) and the first book of the Bible (Genesis – followed by Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy). The agnostics and atheists scored an average of 21, Protestants 16 and Catholics 15, says the Telegraph, which adds: “Not surprisingly, those who said they attended worship at least once a week and considered religion important in their lives often performed better on the overall survey. However, level of education was the best predictor of religious knowledge.”