Jesus-Loving Americans Totally Ignorant of Jesus, Religion
A shocking new book proves Americans are simultaneously the most "religious" and the most religiously ignorant people in the developed world. Overwhelming majorities of Our Fellow Citizens don't know anything about the Bible, the teachings of Jesus or even the 10 Commandments they want posted everywhere. (Could Christians want those ancient laws displayed at every government building so they can learn one or two?)
We've got a shameful list of things Americans don't know about their beloved religion, after the jump.
By every single measure except "formal education," Americans are dramatically stupider than they were a few generations ago, while they wouldn't even be able to communicate with normal people of the 19th Century. The calamitous decline of the American brain means your fellow citizens are culturally, linguistically, mathematically, technically, politically and civically illiterate.
But the way people go on about Jesus and how the Terrorist Muslims are coming to take away our precious freedoms guaranteed by Jesus to each American, you'd think they at least knew some goddamned simple bible stories. No. They actually don't know anything about anything.
* 98% of Americans profess belief in a monotheistic God , with 81% claiming to be "Christian."
* The USA is the "only developed nation in the survey where a majority of citizens reported that religion plays a 'very important' role in their lives."
* Other recent surveys show only 58% to 80% of Americans are "certain" there's a God.
* 75% of adults believe the famed Benjamin Franklin saying "God helps those who help themselves" is one of the Ten Commandments.
* On CNN today, the two anchors and the religion reporter and presumably the producers and directors and editors did not know Benjamin Franklin is responsible for "God helps those who help themselves," with the religion reporter specifically claiming that "nobody" wrote the saying.
* "A 2005 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that nearly two-thirds of Americans endorse the simultaneous teaching of creationism and evolution in public schools," despite the former's insistence that the latter isn't true and never happened.
* 10% believe Joan of Arc was the wife of Noah from the Book of Genesis.
* The decline of religious literacy in America began with the "Second Great Awakening" of the 1800s -- a rejection of the Founding Fathers' Age of Reason and theological knowledge in favor of "personal relationship with God" quackery that led to today's brain-dead born-agains.
* George W. Bush, himself a religious illiterate who claims to be a born-again Christian whose "favorite philosopher" is Jesus, excitedly jabbers about a Third Great Awakening, which will surely end with people sitting on toilets in their living rooms watching 24-hour live video feeds of Paris Hilton shooting heroin while pooping on a Koran.
* 50% of high school seniors believe Sodom and Gomorrah were married. (They were actually just part of an early "sister cities" Chamber of Commerce program.)
* 17% agree that Ramadan is the "Jewish day of atonement."
* Most believe Saint Paul led the Israelites from their enslavement in Egypt.
* Only one in three Americans can name the four Gospels, while less than half can even name one of them.
* A majority couldn't identify the preacher of the "Sermon on the Mount." (Hint: The Bible says it was Jesus.)
* Religious fundamentalists say all this Christian ignorance is because public schools don't teach the Bible, but people don't know anything public schools do teach, either.
* Besides, "evangelical Christians are only slightly more knowledgeable than their non-evangelical counterparts," so those megachurches aren't exactly instructing the faithful.
Hooray for Jesus!
We live in the land of biblical idiots [LA Times]