"Basic Religion Test Stumps Many Americans" -- Except atheists, that is.

I am an atheist, in a world of mostly theists, or at least of people who pay lip service to theism. As such, whenever I get into an argument with someone over religious belief, it behooves me to be humble and try not to come across as a ranting, obnoxious know-it-all, no matter how strongly I disagree with them. That's the kind of accusation theists level at PZ Myers, for example, all the time, and I see where they're coming from, even though I find myself agreeing with him pretty much all the time about pretty much everything. It's a matter of style, not substance: good manners don't cost anything, do they?

Well, just this one time, I want to crow a little bit about the results of a survey reported in today's New York Times. Quoting: "Researchers from the independent Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life phoned more than 3,400 Americans and asked them 32 questions about the Bible, Christianity and other world religions, famous religious figures and the constitutional principles governing religion in public life... Those who scored the highest were atheists and agnostics, as well as two religious minorities: Jews and Mormons." To be specific, atheists and agnostics were the highest-scoring group, correctly answering an average of 20.9 out of 32 questions. White evangelical Protestants (the likes of George W. Bush) came in at 17.6/32, while white Catholics (the way I was raised) got just about exactly half the questions right.

The more you know...