According to The Economist, 89% of Americans describe themselves as "religious" and 62% consider themselves "highly religious." As one of the most religious developed countries, six in ten adults say religion is very important in their lives and four in ten attend religious services weekly. ("The Religion Quiz," The Economist, September 28 2010)
So, a recent Pew Poll that showed a high level of public ignorance about basic religious precepts, is a bit of a shocker. The study of 3,400 Americans, conducted this spring by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, featured 32 "religious knowledge" questions ranging from "What is the first book in the Bible?" to "Is Ramadan the Islamic holy month, the Hindu festival of lights or a Jewish day of atonement?" ("U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey," The Pew Forum, Executive Summary, September 28 2010)
On average, Americans correctly answered 16 of the 32 religious knowledge questions on the survey. The highest-scoring groups were not evangelical Christians but religious minorities in America: Atheists and agnostics (20.9), Jews (20.5) and Mormon (20.3). White evangelicals scored in the middle (17.6); white mainline Protestants (15.8) and white Catholics (16) were slightly lower, and black Protestants (13.4), Hispanic Catholics (11.6) and those who answered "nothing" in terms of religious practice scored the lowest.
The study also concluded, "When education and other demographic traits are held equal, whites score better than minorities on the survey’s religious knowledge questions, men score somewhat better than women, and people outside the South score better than Southerners. The oldest group in the population (age 65 and older) gets fewer questions right than other age groups. However, people 65 and older do about as well as people under age 50 on questions about the Bible and Christianity; they do less well on questions about other world religions." ("U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey," The Pew Forum, Executive Summary, September 28 2010)
For those of you who would like to take an online quiz, please use this link: http://features.pewforum.org/quiz/us-religious-knowledge/index.php
Now, Christians are taking quite a bit of abuse in the media for their performance on the Pew Poll. But, one must remember, various factors, other than religious affiliation (or lack of it) influence test scores. Still, I thought it might be interesting to develop a test that centered on questions pertinent to atheism. Here is the test I devised. Take it and score your paper. (The answers are at the end of the test- don't cheat even if you have no belief in a conscience.) You are also invited to leave your scores in the comments along with your religious preference. And, hey, join the blog too. You might enjoy an entry every now and then. Good luck!
The Atheism Quiz
1. ___ In a broad sense, Atheism is the rejection of belief in the existence of
a. God, b. religion, c. deities, d. spirit.
2. ___ In the Far East, the belief that a contemplative life was not centered on the idea of gods began in
a. 6th century BCE, b. 2nd century BCE, c. 2nd century AD, d. 4th century AD.
3.___ What was NOT supportive to the belief that a contemplative life was not centered on the idea of Gods?
a. Jainism, b. Buddhism, c. Taoism, d. Sikhism.
4.___ America has a complex and enduring commitment to the acceptance of the concept that two or more religions with mutually exclusive truth claims are equally valid. This is known as religious
a. democracy, b. pluralism, c. coalition, d. manifest destiny.
5. ___ The Pew Forum On Religion and Public Life found (2008) that the number of American people who say they are unaffiliated with any particular faith today is more than double the number who say they were not affiliated with any particular religion as children. That percentage is
a. 50.5% b. 45.3% c. 25.2% d. 16.1%
6.___ Also known as apatheism, the concept in which individuals live as if there are no gods and explain natural phenomena without resorting to the divine is
a. monotheism, b. deism, c. pragmatic atheism, d. atheistic dualism.
7.___ The newly elected president of American atheists is
a. George McWilliams, b. Harley Porter, c. John H. Bronson, d. David Silverman.
8.___ The activist who believed organized Christianity relegated women to an unacceptable position in society, and in the 1890s wrote The Woman's Bible, which elucidated a feminist understanding of Biblical scripture and sought to correct the fundamental sexism was
a. Susan B. Anthony, b. Sojourner Truth, c. Lucretia Mott, d. Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
9.___ A common principle that states that entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity and that, all other things equal, the simplest explanation for a phenomenon is the correct one. It is argued to imply that, in the absence of compelling reasons to believe in God, disbelief should be preferred.
a. Pythagorean Theory, b. Law of Absolutes, c. Occam's Razor, d. Hickam's Dictum.
10.___ Atheist Jerry Coyne raked Brown University cell biologist Ken Miller over the coals in The New Republic for Miller's claims that Christians can embrace science without apology. Coyne wrote the percentage of Americans with religious beliefs that "fall into the 'incompatible' (with science) category is
a. 90%." b. 75%." c. 50%." d. 35%."
11.___ A common belief asserts the first known famous atheist was the ancient Greek thinker
a. Cicero, b. Lucretius, c. Diagoras, d. Omar Khayyám.
12.___ The only epistemological idea (philosophy that investigates the origin, nature, methods, and limits of human knowledge) atheists agree on is that truth cannot be obtained through
a. scientific investigation, b. divine revelation or commandment, c. human experience, d. sensory detail.
13.___ In 1869, the word agnostic was coined with reference to the early Church movement Gnosticism by
a. Sir Arthur C. Clarke, b. Thomas Henry Huxley, c. W. Somerset Maugham, d. Tom Wolfe.
14.___ The English term agnostic is derived from the Greek agnostos, which means
a. "scientific." b. "inner understanding." c. "after life," d. "to not know."
15.___ An agnostic believes human knowledge is limited to experience and God isa. beyond human ability to discover, b. absolutely nonexistent, c. within the human soul, d. an alien life form.
16. ___ The concept that government or other entities should exist separately from religion and/or religious beliefs is
a. rationalism, b. theocracy, c. pluralism, d. secularism.
17.___ The country containing the largest measured percentage of people (80-85%) who identify themselves as atheist, agnostic, or non-believer in God is
a. Zimbabwe, b. Turkey, c. Thailand, d. Sweden.
18.___ Any nonreligious "system of thought or action concerned with the interests or ideals of people … the intellectual and cultural movement … characterized by an emphasis on human interests rather than … religion is secular
a. pluralism." b. humanism." c. dogmatism." d. deism."
19.___ The belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated, often associated with extreme pessimism and a radical skepticism that condemns existence is
a. nihilism, b. academicism, c. despotism, d. stoicism.
20.___ The founder of American Atheists who filed a lawsuit against the Baltimore City Public School System that eventually resulted in the removal of compulsory prayer from the public schools of the United States was
a. Linda T. Brown, b. Brenda B. McColloch, c. Clementine Black, d. Madalyn M. O'Hair.
21.___ Modern atheism began with the
a. Industrial Age, b. the Enlightenment, c. Plessy v Ferguson case, d. American civil rights movement.
22.___ A theory of ethics that implies that ethical sentences are neither true nor false, that is, they lack truth-values is known as
a. moral absolutism, b. utilitarianism, c. non-cognitivism, d. egotism.
23.___ What famous Colonial American wrote Rights of Man, a major influence on the French Revolution and Age of Reason, an assault on revealed religion, which argued that man invented religion?
a. Thomas Jefferson, b. Thomas Paine, c. Benjamin Franklin, d. John Adams
24.___ What country formally became atheistic in 1967, prohibiting all religious observance, closing all religious institutions, and persecuting believers, but changed the policy in 1991?
a. Albania, b. Paraguay, c. Syria, d. South Africa.
25.___ According to CNN, New Atheists share a belief that religion should be
a. an individual choice, b. against international statues, c. countered, criticized and exposed, d. unilaterally accepted yet separate from all government.
Answers: 1. c 2. a 3. d 4. b 5. d 6. c 7. d 8. d 9. c 10. a 11. c 12. b 13. b 14. d 15. a 16. d 17. d 18. b
19. a 20. d 21. b 22. c 23. b 24. a 25. c
BBC Series -- "Atheism: A Brief History Of Disbelief "
41 comments:
I got 14/15 on the Pew quiz. Here's my shot your quiz without using google or looking at the answers:
1. C
2. A
3. A
4. B
5. B
6. C
7. D
8. B
9. C
10. A
11. C
12. B
13. A
14. D
15. A
16. D
17. D
18. B
19. A
20. D
21. B
22. A (But there is no such thing as an "Atheism Creed")
23. B
24. A
25. C
Checking the answers but not taking the time to research if the answers provided are correct....
Score: 20/25
I'll put that up against any Theist's attempt. Also, I'll challenge you for sources on number 5 and especially 22.
I got 14/15 on the pew quiz (being Australian I'd never heard of John Edwards)
On this one I got 22/25 but even many of the ones I got right I don't agree that the question is valid as nbing knowledge about what atheism is.
e.g. knowing the answer to a purported survey for which no date is given nor even what countries were surveyed has exactly what to do with knowing about atheism? (I got this one right, btw)
What, for me as an Australian atheist, would knowledge of the existence of or leadership of American organizations and old American writers have to do with anything?
12 has an entirely undemonstrated assertion. What percentage of atheists actually agree with this statement as written, and where is the evidence for it?
15 - another undemonstrated assertion, this time about what agnostics believe, also the answer only applies to strong agnostics.
My guess is that atheists would strongly outperfom theists on these questions.
I got 13/25 on this one and15/15 on Pew.
I got 13/15 on the pew. without using google or anything like that, and i got 19/25 on this one without any help as well.
I agree with the other commenter's critiques of your questions. but hey, i may just be bias. Either way, as an atheist, i feel i did my community proud in both surveys.
Atheists and agnostics have actually read the Bible, thus the reason for their disbelief.
seriously? Atheists don't have a creed, club, book of rules or strong belief in solidarity or history across cultures. Atheism isn't a religion or a thing to study. It is the absence of belief. Looking for a united belief to fill these multiple choice answers neatly is like herding cats, and suggesting that we have a creed to adhere to is like assuming we have some underlying sinister agenda. We're people who have chosen not to join a group; don't try to pigeonhole us.
For what it's worth, thanks for the link to the Pew survey - got 14/15 (as an Aussie I didn't know the last question)
Thanks for the comments and critique. I believe you were right about a couple of questions -- general reference and source concerns -- so I changed them. I appreciate your involvement. Join the blog for some other editorial. Remember, this is for entertainment and, in no way, is meant to be used as critical primary source material.
An atheist's answers:
1. Invalid. No correct answers. Some atheists have never heard or conceived of any deities.
2. Invalid. No correct answers. Atheism begin when humans begin to contemplate.
3. All answers are correct, Atheists don't see support for god/s in any religion.
4. a. Democracy, the ridiculous concept that the ignorance of one person is equally valid to the knowledge of another person.
5. d.
6. c.
7. d.
8. d.
9. Invalid. Question is meant to refer to Occam's razor but fails because Occam's razor does not assume an absolute answer.
10. a.
11. Invalid. The first famous atheist was the first human with human friends.
12. Invalid. Atheists, as a whole, do not agree on any philosophy for determining truth.
13. b.
14. d.
15. Invalid. None of the answers are correct for all agnostics.
16. d.
17. d.
18. b.
19. a.
20. d.
21. Invalid question. The definition of atheism hasn't changed between when the word "atheist" was coined and now.
22. c.
23. b.
24. a.
25. c.
I got 15/15 on the Pew questions and I got 22/25 on yours. I'm not the least bit proud about the Pew score because the questions were either stuff that everyone should know or stuff that was pure trivia. There is no pride in knowing things that you should absolutely know and no shame in not knowing things that you shouldn't.
I am somewhat proud of my score on this quiz because most of the questions really do point to having an understanding about atheism.
12/15 on the Pew survey, and 22/25 here. Failed #3 because I didn't read it properly, and didn't recognise any of the names in #7 and #20. Got a few lucky guesses, though.
15/15 - 19/25
Got 15/15 on the Pew quiz. 20/25 here. Atheist.
13/15 and 19/25. In both cases, half of the ones I missed were "trivia questions", whose answers I don't care about even now that I know them. The other half represented legitimate holes in my knowledge.
15/15 for the Pew and 24/25 for The Atheist Quiz, with my apologies to George McWilliams.
Now, Mr T, would you support an online data collecting version of your quiz? If yes I'll set it up for you ;-) [oldcola gmail com]
15/15 Pew, 23/25 for this one. Atheist. Think my high score is more due to my being born and raised American and having attended Catholic schools with a fondness for multiple choice.
Scored 15/15 on the online Pew quiz included in the report about the Pew survey, Scored 31/32 on the reposted questions actually used in the Pew survey.
And scored 22/25 in this quiz. However, I do concur with the reservations about several of the questions made by commenters above - mostly the heavily American centric nature of quite a few questions and the ill- or overly wide formulation of some other questions.
But it is useful nonetheless to gage your familiarity with the philosophical viewpoints you hold. Few things should be more cringe inducing than someone who is ignorant of their own viewpoints.
Great job, and the next few posts look great. I'll be back to read them this weekend. As for this quiz, I got 21 right. Criticism / comments:
* 2 and 3 will surely be the most missed.
* 5 needs rewriting, "that" antecedent unclear. shame on retired English teacher. I'd drop the child thing altogether, it's polemical.
* I only knew 7 and 20 because of the Pew poll, but answers are trivial and parochial. Btw, Silverman's daughter-bible quote is worth millions of dollars of successful PR. Bravo!
* 11 I call unfair. For instance, the excellent history of atheism that you highlight mentions Lucretius but not Diagoras. I'd thus call it a common belief (but the phrase isn't good for a question).
Again, great job, I'm linking to this for sure!
19/25 (atheist here)
While I definitely have some issues with the relevance of some of the questions, I do think this quiz is encouraging me to do more study into the history of philosophy. I'm a bit embarrassed at having missed 2 and 3; I used to be quite fascinated with Eastern philosophy (although in fairness, much more with later Chinese history than anything else).
I got 15/15 on the Pew test and 23/25 on yours. The ones I missed were 8 and 10.
Also, I agree with Norwegian Shooter that 11 is a poor question: I only got it right because I recognized that Diagoras is a Greek name and the others are not (Lucretius, for example, is clearly a Roman name), not because I knew who any of them were, necessarily. Still, a very enjoyable quiz!
This is a lousy multiple choice question:
"11.___ A common belief asserts the first known famous atheist was the ancient Greek thinker
a. Cicero, b. Lucretius, c. Diagoras, d. Omar Khayyám."
Cicero was clearly Roman and thus not Greek (but of course he knew his Greek -- and his best, and life-long, friend was a study friend who later moved to Athens).
Lucretius was another Roman. Clearly an Atheist, though. And quite famous. Also qualified for the "ancient thinker" moniker.
Diagoras? Never head of him. But the name is Greek. May have been famous in his time, I dunno. Clearly isn't now.
Khayyám? Persian, lived about a thousand years after Cicero and Lucretius.
Three of the four can clearly be excluded without knowing anything about the seemingly correct answer, Diagoras.
The question that has Clarke as one of the possible answers has a similar problem.
Mr. T, forgive me if this is out of bounds, (and delete it if it is), but since many WEIT readers will likely stop by, I want to tell them that Jerry has banned me from his blog for a mild disagreement over a matter he later backed off from. I've tried emailing him to discuss, but haven't heard anything.
If you're a WEIT regular, please plead my case for me, I really loved commenting there. Also, have you noticed there are never smart refutations of his posts in the comments?
31/32 on Pew (15/15 on the web quiz) and 23/25 here.
My answers.
1. c +
2. c -
3. d +
4. b +
5. d +
6. c +
7. c +
8. d +
9. c +
10. a +
11. c +
12. b +
13. c -
14. d +
15. a +
16. a -
17. d +
18. b +
19. a +
20. d +
21. b +
22. b -
23. d -
24. a +
25. d -
Scored 23/25. I fail at feminism for not knowing Stanton (!), and I got the Confucius question wrong.
I would quibble with some other things here, from notability (#7, #10) to badly worded, misleading or inaccurate questions (#2, #4, #11, #15, #21). It seems like other people are taking you to task for many of these, but I will say a few things:
2. Confucius may have been one of the most influential in the Far East to advocate a contemplative life not centered on theism, but I doubt he was the first contemplative nontheist in China. You may need to tighten up the question.
4. Religious pluralism can mean many things in common usage, not just the crazy and stupid view you mention. Also, what do you mean by "valid"?
11. Vague weasel words here. "A common belief"? "Famous"? How famous, and how common? (Btw, I had never heard of Diagoras, but I got the question right because none of the others were Greek!)
15. It's perfectly possible for an agnostic to think that God's existence is the sort of thing that can be supported or debunked by arguments and/or evidence, but just not find the existing arguments convincing either way.
21. This is a misleading question. You can find the intellectual roots of modern atheism in Hume, yes, but also in Epicurus. There's no point where "modern atheism" begins.
I'm genuinely surprised that people are complaining about #12 though. The question and its answer only claim that atheists don't believe you can learn things through divine revelation. If we read "divine revelation" as "revelation from God/gods," and atheists don't believe that gods exist to reveal things to people, #12 seems like a pretty safe bet!
15 of 15 on Pew; 23 of 25 on this one ... definitely more thought provoking than Pew's -which was ridiculously simple-minded, probably in consideration of people like palin, o'donnell, and angle - ... me, raised a liberal Reform Jew and today, proud of the tradition and heritage, but today an atheist ... alum of the U.S. Naval Academy and Washington College of Law @ AU.
Question 21 is wrong. Modern atheism began with Machiavelli at the height of the Renaissance, not the Enlightenment.
God, before Machiavelli, dispensed divine right to princes and morality to their subjects. After Machiavelli, God was seen for what He is: an instrument of princes or would-be princes to use or not use as necessity dictates.
And Machiavelli's blasphemous gems—amplified by their indirect understatement—are unsurpassed in literature. The Prince is worth reading for its unceasing blasphemy alone. Ask yourself: from which foreign invader is it that Machiavelli wishes to free Italy? The French? Or the Church? Machiavelli's double entendres should leave you pealing with laughter. Here he is in the final chapter, referring to both Savonarola (whom Machiavelli replaced) and Jesus (whom he seeks to displace) in the very same sentence, with the identical meaning:
"some spark may have been shown by one, which made us think he was ordained by God for our redemption, nevertheless it was afterwards seen, in the height of his career, that fortune rejected him"
Leo Strauss is a wonderful source for some of Machiavelli's blasphemies.
"The most superficial fact regarding the Discourses, the fact that the number of its chapters equals the number of books of Livy's History, compelled us to start a chain of tentative reasoning which brings us suddenly face to face with the only New Testament quotation that ever appears in Machiavelli's two books and with an enormous blasphemy." —Leo Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli
15/15 on the shortened Pew quiz, 32/32 on the full Pew quiz. 21 out of 25 on this. Much tougher quiz than the Pew one. Atheist here.
Quite a variety of folks reading your blog. Fun reading the comments. As for #25, I find it intriguing that folks who do not believe in God feel so strongly about convincing others of the same.
Efrique is right: the answer to 12 is just wrong. Many atheists -- perhaps most -- recognize that a god showing up and performing objectively demonstrable miracles would indeed provide us knowledge. Of course, this so far has not happened. What atheists deny is that any knowledge is to be had by divine revelation to questionable prophets that can in no way be tested.
I did check against the answers, but I suppose I got a poor score. It's not too surprising from a Frenchman on a quizz focused on American atheism. Beyond that, I found this quizz very unbalanced: far too many questions were about word definitions or "who did such and such", rather than about atheism facts or values.
22/25. Sorry, Dr. Coyne, I missed question 10. (and also 5 and 12). Guess I need to read your log more religiously (yuk yuk).
ex-catholic atheist.
Pew 14/15 and 13/25 here. I missed most of US based historical figures.
Never heard of the ladies ...
22/25 here, 15/15 PEW
I scored 14 out of 20 correct.
19/25 here 15/15 on the Pew.
15/15 on Pew, 21/25 here. I consider myself an atheist. And number 10 really needs a comma, either after "Americans", or after "beliefs". That is, do you mean per cent of ALL Americans, or per cent of Americans who have religious beliefs?
Enjoyed your quiz.
15/15 on the Pew test; 21/25 here. I had no idea there was such a thing as a "president of American atheists"!
Describing Tom Paine as a Colonial American is stretching the definition to breaking point.
15/15 on the Pew Quiz. 18/25 on yours.
Atheist.
14/15 on Pew.
19/25 here.
17/19 here after discounting US-centric questions.
I got 15/15 on the Pew, but I have to admit, I did guess on the last one.
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