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But here is the place issues turn out to be tricky: As you write papers in college and transfer deeper into your discipline of research, what counts as common knowledge turns into much less clear. College graduates correctly reply 7.2 extra questions, on common, than people with a high school education or less schooling. Those who say they have taken a world religions class (e.g., in high school or college) reply 17.3 questions correctly, on average, compared with 12.5 amongst those who haven’t taken such a category. Along with instructional elements, the religious variety of Americans’ social networks additionally appears to have a connection with ranges of religious knowledge. The survey does not embrace sufficient interviews with Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or Sikh respondents to permit analysis of their levels of religious knowledge.6 Looking solely at questions concerning the Bible and Christianity, evangelical Protestants give the best variety of right solutions (9.Three out of 14, on common).

Christians who attend religious companies at the very least as soon as every week appropriately answer nearly 10 of the survey’s 14 questions about the Bible and Christianity, on common (9.6). By contrast, Christians who say they seldom or by no means attend religious companies appropriately answer a median of 7.2 of those questions. Nine of the survey’s questions had been moderately difficult for respondents; more than three-in-ten however fewer than six-in-ten respondents were in a position to answer them accurately. As an example, Buddhists receive a mean thermometer ranking of 67 levels from non-Buddhists who correctly reply both of the survey’s Buddhism-knowledge questions appropriately, but simply fifty three degrees from those who answer neither Buddhism-knowledge query accurately. Atheists and Mormons are among the following highest performers, getting an average of 8.6 and 8.5 questions proper, respectively. Protestants as an entire appropriately answer an average of 14.3 questions, with members of the evangelical Protestant tradition (15.5) doing greatest within this group.5 Catholics (14.0) and Mormons (13.9) perform similarly to each other and to U.S.

One potential clarification for why Jews, atheists and agnostics rating among the highest on this survey is that every one three of these groups are extremely educated, on average. Setiya (2012) observes that one can carry out a primary action of clenching one’s fist without even having the idea that one can succeed at doing it. It is obvious that if we are to take care of the progress in medicine which has marked the last 25 years, the government should lengthen monetary assist to primary medical research in the medical faculties and in the universities, via grants each for research and for fellowships. Alternatively, Americans are much less conversant in some primary information about other world religions, together with Judaism, Buddhism and Hinduism.2 Just three-in-ten U.S. Indeed, roughly six-in-ten Americans know that Ramadan is an Islamic holy month and that Mecca is Islam’s holiest city, roughly double the share of U.S. An analogous share know that the Christian doctrine of the Trinity holds that there is one God in three individuals – the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Six-in-ten U.S. adults know that Ramadan is an Islamic holy month (versus a Hindu festival of lights, a Jewish prayer for the dead, or a celebration of the Buddha’s beginning) and that Mecca (not Cairo, Medina or Jerusalem) is Islam’s holiest city and a spot of pilgrimage for Muslims.

For example, those that personally know somebody who is Muslim are much more seemingly than those that do not know anyone who is Muslim to identify Ramadan as an Islamic holy month (76% vs 46%). And whereas 71% of respondents who know someone who is Hindu also know that yoga has its roots in the religion, simply 43% of those that have no idea a Hindu are conscious of yoga’s Hindu roots. Just 14% of respondents know that the Jewish and Muslim communities within the U.S. Many Americans also battle to answer some questions about the size of religious minorities in the U.S. Roughly one-in-five Americans (18%) know that the “truth of suffering” is amongst Buddhism’s 4 “noble truths,” and simply 15% correctly establish the Vedas as a Hindu textual content. The religious knowledge part consisted of 32 questions in total, together with 14 concerning the Bible and Christianity, 13 about other world religions (4 about Judaism, three in regards to the religious composition of specific international locations, two each about Islam and Hinduism, and one each about Buddhism and Sikhism), two about atheism and agnosticism, two about the dimensions of religious minorities within the U.S.