Turns out that in this uber religious country of ours (the good old YOU ESS AY!), where you can’t throw a communion wafer without hitting someone who believes a priest can turn it into the body of Christ, people of no faith actually know more about matters of faith and the history of religion than believers do.
Atheists and agnostics narrowly edged out Jews and Mormons for first place in a religious knowledge survey. Non-believers answered 20.9 out of 32 questions correctly, narrowly edging Jews (20.5) and Mormons (20.3). Protestants (16) and Catholics (14.7) knew less about religion on average.
A look at the study shows that only Mormons and white evangelical Protestants knew more than non-believers on average when it comes to matters of the Bible and Christianity specifically. Atheists apparently know more about Christianity than your average Christian does.
Atheists also beat out everybody but Jews on knowledge of world religions, and nobody apparently knows more about religion in public life than Atheists do.
Oh, and that gag about the communion wafer? Apparently you’re less likely than I thought to hit someone who believes such things. Nearly half (45%) of Catholics in America don’t know that the Church teaches that the communion wafer becomes the literal body of Christ during communion.
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